Freenome Reports Data for Multiomic Blood-Based Screening Test for Lung Cancer

– The data, generated from a study designed to optimize ongoing test refinement, will be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting in April –

BRISBANE, Calif., March 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Freenome, an early cancer detection company developing blood-based screening tests, today announced initial development data for its investigational lung cancer screening test. The data demonstrate the potential of a multiomics approach that combines DNA methylation analysis and protein markers to detect lung cancer in high-risk individuals.

Freenome investigators will present the data at next month's AACR Annual Meeting in San Diego. Poster presentation details:

• Abstract Number: 1107
• Title: Development and performance of a multiomics lung cancer screening blood test
• Presenter: Ofer Shapira, Freenome director of computational biology
• Session Title: Early Detection Biomarkers 1
• Session Date and Time: Sunday, April 19, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM PDT

For the study, an AI/ML classifier was trained on tissue (n=136) and plasma (n=6,716) samples. The test's accuracy was evaluated in 673 plasma samples, including 363 lung cancer cases across all stages and 310 cancer-negative controls, from individuals matching the intended screening population (adults aged 50-80 with high-risk smoking history).

In this cohort, Freenome's proprietary multiomics platform -- using base-resolution methylation sequencing of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and plasma protein immunoassays -- achieved adjusted sensitivity* of 90.7% at 50% specificity and 80.4% at 75% specificity for detecting lung cancer. The multiomic approach outperformed a methylation-only version of the test, which showed adjusted sensitivities of 85.8% and 78.2% at the same specificity thresholds.

The multiomics test detected lung cancer across all three subtypes evaluated in this study (adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and small-cell lung cancer) and across all disease stages, including an adjusted sensitivity of 77.1% at 50% specificity for Stage I cases. 

"Less than 20% of eligible high-risk adults are currently screened for lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.," said Jimmy Lin, M.D., Ph.D. MHS, chief scientific officer at Freenome. "A blood-based screening test could provide a more accessible option to increase screening participation. In this study, our multiomics approach demonstrated the potential of our test to detect lung cancer across stages and subtypes, and we're encouraged as we continue to advance to a larger validation study in a previously unseen evaluation cohort."

Freenome is developing a flexible multi-cancer detection platform designed to support a personalized test offering tailored to each individual's health status, risk factors and screening recommendations. Leveraging a single blood draw and a common assay, this approach utilizes machine and deep learning classifiers to optimize diagnostic accuracy across a diverse range of cancer types.

*Reported sensitivities are adjusted to address differences between the evaluation cohort and literature-reported distributions for stage and histological subtype

About Freenome

Freenome is an early cancer detection company developing blood-based tests to detect cancer when it is most treatable. The company recognizes that no single technology can identify every cancer due to the disease's inherent heterogeneity. Freenome's approach combines a multiomics platform that analyzes multiple signals in the blood with artificial intelligence and machine learning to tune into cancer's subtlest clues, even at the earliest stages of the disease.

SOURCE Freenome Holdings, Inc.