GeneCentric Therapeutics just locked in the initial close of an $8 million Series C round, courtesy of the returning trio: Hatteras Venture Partners, IAG Capital Partners, Alexandria Venture Investments, and the diagnostics giant Labcorp, who’s not just writing checks but building diagnostics shoulder-to-shoulder with the team. In a world full of generic “precision medicine” startups tossing around buzzwords like confetti, GeneCentric isn’t promising precision, they’re measuring it. Literally.
Founded in 2011 out of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, GeneCentric was born from the kind of deep science that doesn’t flinch under fluorescent lights. The scientific trio, Dr. Charles M. Perou, Dr. David Neil Hayes, and Dr. Myla Lai-Goldman, built this company on the belief that matching cancer patients with the right treatment shouldn’t be guesswork. It should be genomics.
They’ve turned RNA into a scalpel, slicing straight through the static with their ExpressCT and GenomicsNext platforms. Liquid biopsy isn’t just a feature here, it’s the playground. They’re pulling gene expression signals from circulating tumor DNA, while the rest of the field still stares at mutations through a rearview mirror. Their rT(I)ME Explorer and CSP platforms aren’t about reading tumors, they’re decoding the entire molecular mixtape. If you’re in oncology and still playing MP3s, this team is spinning uncompressed FLAC.
Dr. Michael V. Milburn stepped in as CEO after years leading science at Metabolon and Plexxikon. Dr. Kirk Beebe brings translational rigor to the CSO seat. COO Chenyqua Shepard, CPA, keeps operations cleaner than a sterile field. And Brian Kelly, recently tapped as SVP of Biz Dev, is translating science into strategy like it’s second language.
They aren’t chasing headlines, they’re charting responses. They’ve licensed lung cancer diagnostics to Labcorp, built partnerships with G1 Therapeutics and Tempus, and developed tests for pancreatic, lung, breast, and colon cancers. GeneCentric isn’t in a rush to IPO, they’re building something stickier, a pipeline of RNA-based precision tools with the potential to reshape the $4.8 trillion genomic medicine landscape.
So, no rah-rah, no chest thumping. Just a group of operators and scientists who figured out that expression, not just mutation, is what truly drives outcomes. In a space cluttered with noise, GeneCentric is the sub-frequency that makes the system move.
