An article sponsored by EnterpriseSG in the Straits Times, published yesterday, put a much-deserved spotlight on Lucence. The Singapore startup has now morphed into a fully-fledged medical company, which has made enormous leaps in mass cancer screening, which can potentially save millions of lives.
Typically, screening for cancer can be invasive, unpleasant, impractical and still quite inaccurate. Enduring gastroscopies, colonoscopies or even mammographies may not only be uncomfortable (to say the least) but provide false positives, needlessly scaring people who are perfectly healthy.
More importantly, however, it’s difficult to test patients for many possible cancers in a short time span, not to mention all at once.
Given that many types may develop silently, without giving symptoms until it’s too late, it would be an enormous breakthrough if it was possible to conduct one simple test which could detect early signals of the disease which you may not even be aware of.
Such a breakthrough has happened in recent years, thanks in part to Lucence, a small company among medical giants, whose tests have now become products available in clinics and hospitals in Singapore, as well as in the US and other countries.
Rapid development
We covered Lucence’s earlier days here on Vulcan Post, when it raised US$20 million in Series A funding in late 2019. Soon after, the pandemic struck, and the company hit significant roadblocks given the priority given to the global fight against COVID-19, delaying the opening of its second laboratory in the US.
Nevertheless, within the next 3 years, it developed two tests LiquidHALLMARK and LucenceINSIGHT, progressively raising the number of detected cancers from around 15 to as many as 50, and bringing them to the market. It also won approval of Medicare in the USA, which is now reimbursing tests for qualifying, elderly patients covered by the federal programme.
Maverick brothers
One of the investors in Lucence is none other than Min-Liang Tan, the billionaire founder of Razer, known for the hardware company producing peripherals for PC gamers as well as gaming laptops.
It’s not a surprise that he would help the company, though, not only because it was so promising but also because it was founded by his older brother, Min-Han Tan.
Yes, I’m sure you may want to keep this from your parents, but one brother is an IT billionaire, and the other is on a mission to save millions of lives and is already cracking a growing, multibillion-dollar cancer screening market.
Min-Liang helped introduce Lucence to his early angel investors and, according to media reports, has contributed a sizeable sum to the company himself.
To add another twist to the story, the brothers wouldn’t have predicted that their own mum would be the first patient to try Lucence’s diagnostic tests back in 2017.
She suffered from stage four metastatic colon cancer and received the LiquidHALLMARK test to see what her potential options were. The test worked but it was sadly too late for her, and she passed away by the end of the year (you can more about it in this Forbes article).
One blood sample, up to 3-week wait
While blood tests that could detect certain types of cancer markers in blood have existed for quite some time, they covered a relatively narrow group and were of limited sensitivity, as they detected proteins already produced in higher quantities by cancerous cells.
Lucence focuses on detecting DNA strands shed by cancers into the bloodstream instead, which are amplified and analysed with the help of machine learning for better detection accuracy and earlier timing.
This is why the broadest test, LucenceINSIGHT Plus, can cover as many as 50 different types.
However, it requires just a single blood sample and a 12—to 18-day wait for the results.
However, it must be said that it is not a replacement for other diagnostic tools but is primarily meant to complement them. False positives and negatives are still statistically possible, so it’s best to use a combination of screening techniques to rule out any errors.
How much does it cost? Where can you take it?
In Singapore, the test is available in multiple clinics and hospitals, so you must inquire at yours to see if it offers the service.
The out-of-pocket price for a standard LucenceINSIGHT test, which detects up to 12 cancer types, appears to currently be around S$1999 while the full LucenceINSIGHT Plus, which covers 50 types, costs S$3999.
Quite expensive, I know. However, considering how broad the test is and how many different cancers it can detect, which otherwise would require separate visits and diagnosis, it could actually be a money saver (not to mention saving your life, of course).
In addition, depending on your insurance policy and/or any memberships with healthcare providers, it may be included in a screening package you have already paid for, so you need to clarify that with them.