The story
Grail began as a San Francisco biotechnology and pharmaceutical startup company in 2015, the parent company being Illumina of San Diego, which produces most of the DNA sequencing machines that scientists use to study human biology and diagnose rare genetic diseases. Richard Klausner, then chief medical officer at Illumina and former director of the National Cancer Institute, advocated for the new business. According to the San Francisco Business Times, he correctly predicted how DNA sequencing technology would make it possible to detect evidence of a tumor from a blood sample. He also joined Grail's board of directors. According to Forbes in 2017, 20% of Grail's profits are kept by Illumina.
In September 2020, Illumina announced an agreement to purchase Grail outright for $7.1 billion.
On November 27, 2020, Grail announced a commercial partnership with the National Health Service (England) (NHS), to trial the Galleri test, reporting in 2026.
In March 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the vertical merger. In September 2022, an administrative judge ruled against the FTC's position on antitrust grounds.
In June 2023, Grail disclosed that letters were mailed to 408 patients incorrectly informing them that they may have cancer. The company blamed the incident on PWNHealth, saying that it was due to a software configuration issue, not due to incorrect Galleri test results.
In October 2023, the European Commission ordered Grail to be divested from Illumina within the next twelve months. The European Commission (EC) has since approved Illumina's divestment plan for separating from Grail. Illumina has set a goal of finalizing the divestment terms by the end of the second quarter of 2024. In April 2024, the EC approved Illumina's plan, allowing Illumina to explore either a trade sale or a capital markets transaction (spin-off) to divest Grail. In May 2024, Illumina publicly filed a Form 10 registration statement with the U.S. SEC, a necessary step for a potential capital markets separation of Grail. If a capital markets transaction occurs, Illumina must capitalize Grail with around $1 billion to fund 2.5 years of operations per the EC's divestment plan. The spinoff was completed in June 2024, with Grail trading on the Nasdaq with ticker symbol GRAL and Illumina retaining a 14.5% share of Grail.
In March 2026, former CEO Bob Ragusa announced his retirement. In June 2026, former president of Grail, Dr. Joshua Ofman, was appointed as CEO of the company.
From Wikipedia’s article on Grail, Inc., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7