Diagnostics firm to launch screening assay for oral cancer
Wisdom Bioscience is preparing to launch screening and diagnostic assays for oral cancer, which it plans to offer through dentists in the UK and US.
The genomics-driven diagnostics company was founded in 2024 and is located in Irvine, California, with a UK office in Daresbury, Cheshire.
It is currently developing a scalable molecular diagnostics platform that integrates next generation sequencing (NGS) and non-invasive sample collection into routine dental care.
Its approach is designed to enable earlier detection of disease, improve clinical outcomes, and expand access to cancer screening through existing healthcare infrastructure.
Beyond its initial oral cancer application, the company’s platform has the potential to support future diagnostic and screening solutions across additional disease areas.
Hayden Jeffreys, co-founder and chief executive, said: “Oral cancer is growing in prevalence, but it has been left behind in terms of diagnostics and screening.
“Though rates of oral cancer in the US declined as fewer people smoke, they’ve been on the rise of late because of increasing HPV transmission.
“Detecting oral cancer early boosts the odds of successful treatment and the primary screening tool at the moment is literally digital – dentists typically use a finger to feel along the surfaces of the mouth to detect any abnormalities.”
He added: “We realised there was an opportunity to really change the way things are done, building upon the groundwork laid by the past 30 years of molecular diagnostics.
“The dental space is ideal, in many ways, because it is both underserved and large.”
Wisdom recently closed a funding round that included Stanford University’s Stephen Quake and former Illumina chief executive, Jay Flatley, as investors.
At first, Wisdom Bio’s assays will use targeted sequencing and a known set of biomarkers, including HPV-related targets, to detect oral cancer, but the firm plans to expand eventually into whole-exome sequencing.
A few tests currently in development or commercially available can detect HPV and other biomarkers of oral cancer, but these tend to be blood- or saliva-based.
Wisdom Bio, instead, hopes to capitalise on clinicians’ increased comfort levels relying on results from non-invasive swab samples, Jeffreys said, which grew during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The firm plans to market two products initially – an oral cancer screening test and an oral cancer diagnostic test – incorporating a rough swab to sample areas of concern that is then mailed to a reference lab.
The firm has partnered with an unnamed lab and plans to scale to work with other labs in the future.
Wisdom Bioscience is currently undertaking a clinical validation of its testing and expects to launch its first commercial product by the end of this year.
The firm is also looking into expanding from oral cancer screening to other cancer that can be potentially detected from mouth swabs, such as nasal, esophageal, stomach, and lung cancers.
