What does OneCell Diagnostics do?

OneCell specializes in accelerating precision oncology. In cancer, one shoe doesn't fit all so you have to personalize the treatment which depends on your genetic profile. Personalization of treatment and precision oncology is now entering its third generation of advancement. The driver to precision oncology is what is known as biomarkers. What is expressed in a cancer patient's body. The first generation of that was based on tissue and genomics. That evolved into the second generation of liquid biopsy, which isn’t as invasive. Liquid biopsy has cell-free DNA. The fragments of DNA are circulating in the blood and the next generation sequencing to essentially analyze that data even further. But the information that is available from cell-free DNA is limited. And that's why the third generation is now born, what we call cell biopsy.

The third-generation emerging is where our company OneCell Diagnostics has a very special science and technology, which tells the full story of what’s going on inside cancer patients’ live bodies. From a simple blood test, we can provide accurate information to the oncologist, to appropriately treat the cancer patient. Patients will get the right treatment at the right time. Our mission is to help cancer patients better manage their disease.

‍

What is specifically new about your approach?

Liquid biopsy, which has become very popular, has a limitation because cell-free DNA contains limited information. A better representative is a circulating tumor cell. A gram of tumor sheds about a million cells per day. But we have trillions of cells, so it's one in a billion-circulating tumor cells. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. The unique thing about OneCell is our groundbreaking science, which is able to capture that one in a billion circulating tumor cells with very high sensitivity, specificity, purity, and very low cost.

The other discovery is after having captured that unique one in a billion-circulating tumor cell, OneCell is also able to isolate that cell without changing its characterization or “fixing it”. When we have a live single cell, we can take that cell unaltered for a deeper analysis.

Historically, pathology and radiology are maybe two sides of the same coin, but they don't talk to each other, that talking happens in the head of an oncologist. They look at the pathology report, and the radiology report, and then try to piece it together. Now extend that to new sciences that have been evolving over the past few decades. Every day, every week, every month, you have new papers that publish new information that is made available. Science is moving fast. How do you take these new scientific inventions and then bring them to the point of care? Busy oncologists don't have time to read all of that.

OneCell has achieved breakthroughs in both deep science and data science, leveraging AI and ML to provide deeper insights into cancer. It has developed a cloud based, mobile enabled comprehensive software platform that integrates multi-omics biomarker data. This empowers oncologists with actionable information, presenting the information more quickly and in an integrated fashion right at the doctor’s fingertips.

‍

Science and technology have really evolved to the level where we could be the catalyst, bridging that gap, turning cancer into a manageable disease, not a death sentence. Doing something meaningful and leaving a lasting impact that will have changed the world of cancer management is my biggest driver.

‍

Who are your customers and what specifically are the problems you're solving for them?

We've taken an approach of leveraging the India - Silicon Valley science and technology corridor, with India as the first go-to-market strategy for experimentation, where the regulatory hurdles are less significant than in the United States. We have MOUs with the hospitals in India and we essentially influence the influencers, which are the oncologists. The oncologists recommend our test, the patients undergo the test, and the patient also pays for it. In India, our model is what we call B2B2C.

In the last 18 months, we've had more than 10,000 patients benefit from our test and improve their outcomes. The learnings from the bedside will be brought back into the lab bench and evolve our technology in a much more rapid fashion. This Data helps us train our AI algorithms better. AI is transforming Healthcare. But it is data hungry. If Data is the new oil, India is a good oil-field.

Our go-to-market strategy in the United States is to help Biotech & Pharma companies accelerate the Translational Research in their clinical studies and make them more efficient. This does not need FDA clearance & we now have a better tested technology, better tested products, and we are able to shorten the path to revenue.

‍

Are there any recent milestones that you can share?

One groundbreaking achievement has been in automation. We have developed a system to automate this picking up of the circulating tumor cells that are one in a billion. This was an encouragement from Celesta Advisor and OneCell board member Dr. Jim Rothman and several other board members who told us, “experimenting in India is great, but experimenting in US with the manual labor costs being so high, is going to be very difficult”. Automation is the future. We took that advice very seriously and we developed a machine that will truly transform this field. We soft-launched that machine to attract half a dozen scientists who would like to experiment, and we’ve been oversubscribed by an order of magnitude. It’s a good problem to have.

‍

Tell us about your personal professional background that brought you to founding OneCell.

My journey is unique. I grew up in a village without electricity, a stark contrast to my life in Silicon Valley these past 40 years. As an engineer by trade, I founded companies to address technological gaps I encountered. However, witnessing the suffering of a friend with cancer inspired me to leverage technology for human health. This led me to pioneer digital pathology, culminating in the acquisition of my company BioImagene by Roche.

My subsequent work focused on utilizing technology to improve cancer research, over time culminating in the founding of OneCell, where we are combining cutting-edge science with innovative technology to revolutionize cancer treatment.

‍

How can an investor best partner with an early-stage company OneCell?

It’s relatively easy to raise money, but it’s much more difficult to find the right partner who understands your vision, your passion, your mission, and align to it. Our investors, like Celesta, are complementing our work, by augmenting our team and helping us scale up, identifying areas of need and bringing people like Dr. Rothman on board. I appreciate him pushing me to expedite and sometimes pulling back saying, you're doing too many things. Helping us focus on fewer things when necessary, and ensuring those are the right things, is important to building a strong business. Receiving such unique outside perspective is valuable to us, creating a positive push and pull environment.

‍

Where do you find motivation to keep going?

I learned from John Dean, one of our board members, that you must find a bigger purpose. At my age and stage in my life, a few more zeros are not going to change my lifestyle. But the purpose to do well by doing good is the driver. For four decades now, we've been talking about finding a cure for cancer. If you see the stats, for the first time last year, the number of new cancer patients has exceeded two million in the United States. Fifty million people worldwide. You might get diagnosed, treated, and achieve remission, but that hanging sword that it might to come back, is always there.

I’ve lost my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my first cousin, my second cousin, and some close friends. I feel we could have saved their lives. Science and technology have really evolved to the level where we could be the catalyst, bridging that gap, turning cancer into a manageable disease, not a death sentence. Doing something meaningful and leaving a lasting impact that will have changed the world of cancer management is my biggest driver.

‍

What advice would you give to other founders?

Entrepreneurs are very good at finding a hole in the market. But is there a market in that hole? And do we have a differentiator to address that market? We often drink our own Kool-Aid. We get excited and we think that everybody is out there to change the world. But is there validation from a naysayer? Do you have perspective from thought leaders who see many more companies and tools and technologies like yours?

I always look for three T's. The team, the technology, and the traction with key opinion leaders. And using the three T's, can you create a disproportionate differentiating advantage over the competition and then choose your bets correctly. You have to pick your lane, find the smaller niches, and be the king of the hill before you start climbing the mountain.

‍

What are you reading?

"The India Way," a book by Jaishanker, profoundly influenced my thinking. It emphasizes the power of developing solutions for India, which can then be scaled globally. Inspired by this concept, I believe we can leverage the "chaos" of developing markets to drive innovation in the U.S. For example, our healthcare system could benefit greatly from solutions developed to address the challenges faced in developing countries. This book has motivated me to explore how we can combine the ingenuity of Silicon Valley with the unique challenges of developing markets to create impactful and sustainable solutions for the world.