Over our 48-year history, Mayfield has partnered with entrepreneurs from over 500 companies, including iconic ones who leveraged inflection points to build big healthcare and medical companies. Some examples include Amgen, Genentech, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Heartstream, and Intuitive Surgical, which re-defined pharma, gene sequencing, and medtech devices to save millions of lives.
While US healthcare costs are 2x that of other developed nations in terms of GDP, it has not translated into better outcomes. We see a big opportunity for emerging companies to develop transformational technology platforms that enable precision care. We think these platforms will be critical to promoting health and wellness with solutions that are highly customized to each individual and deliver the best possible care without wasted resources.
New developments such as the 1000x reduction in gene sequencing costs, advances in gene synthesis and editing like CrispR, stem cell applications, application of computational chemistry, computational biology and machine learning to healthcare , and the consumer expectations of delightful user experiences are serving as drivers of innovation. This is inspiring a generation of entrepreneurs with a big vision, the ability to build movements, and with the cross-functional skills to leverage medical advancements and technology innovation to build bold companies.
Today, I am excited to announce that we have partnered with Charlie Silver, Adam Abate and the team at Mission Bio, which is delivering a breakthrough single-cell DNA analysis solution that will become indispensable to discover, develop, produce and deliver cures for hard-to-treat diseases like many forms of cancer. The Mission Bio Tapestri solution leverages proprietary droplet microfluidics to provide unprecedented single-cell DNA analysis and throughput, enabling detection of genomic variability within and across cell populations. This has the promise of a 1000x precision improvement over conventional sequencing without Mission Bio for detecting mutations in every cell of a biopsy sample. The solution is initially sold to pharma and biotech companies, translational genomics cancer centers, clinical research organizations and academic medical centers. With their unique approach combining precision engineering with cutting-edge biochemistry, we see the opportunity to greatly impact the economics and success of the development and clinical use of precision therapies.
Besides saving lives, a successful company in this area has an unbounded market opportunity with today’s $10B sample prep and sequencing market estimated to grow to $20B in the next 5-7 years, and the cancer/tumor profiling market expected to grow from $25B in 2016 to over $60B in 2021.
Mayfield has always embraced a people-first philosophy and the team at Mission Bio personifies this belief. Adam’s lab at UCSF (with Adam Sciambi and Dennis Eastburn), has done cutting-edge work in bioengineering, and Charlie has proven experience in bringing precision engineering products to market. Together, they have already built a world-class team from the world of genomics, cloud software and biology in a high-performance, high-energy environment in South San Francisco.
We are honored to partner with Charlie, Adam and the Mission Bio team and welcome them to the Mayfield family.