about us
“The greatest need we have today in the human cancer problem, except for a universal cure, is a method for detecting cancer before there are any clinical signs or symptoms.”
Sidney Farber, M.D.
Father of modern chemotherapy
November 1962
pioneering the detection of early cancer
Harbinger Health is pioneering the detection of early cancer and enabling foundationally new approaches to cancer screening, diagnosis and management. Incubated within Flagship Pioneering for three years before launching in 2021, Harbinger combines advances in artificial intelligence with proprietary insights into the biology of the beginnings of cancer to identify cancer before it is visible or symptomatic with the aim of developing a low-cost, multi-cancer blood test.
A harbinger is a “forerunner, that which precedes and gives notice of the coming of another.” We not only are working to identify the harbinger – the biological programs present in the earliest forms of cancer – but seek to be the harbinger, to be the forerunner which will usher in the future of healthcare.
At Harbinger, we intend to lead in shaping this future – creating a proactive paradigm so that people can live cancer-free for longer, adding years to life and life to years. We envision a future where, instead of keeping cancer from spreading, it could be kept from forming, making a cancer diagnosis a routine health problem to be addressed rather than a life-altering event to be feared with profound implications for people, healthcare systems and societies.
Our answer to the problem of late cancer detection and unacceptable patient prognoses starts with our proprietary solutions for the future of cancer pre-emption. Beginning with blood-based tests, we will enable cancer detection before it is visible. By identifying biological programs rooted in cancer's origins, we can enable identification of early stage and pre-disease. Through this new pathway for cancer diagnosis and early therapeutic interventions, Harbinger Health has the potential to fundamentally change cancer care, for everyone.
Feras Hantash, M.S., Ph.D.
Feras Hantash, M.S., Ph.D., serves as the CLIA lab director at Harbinger Health, overseeing diagnostic test development and validations, clinical laboratory operations, and implementation of the quality management system to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
With more than 20 years of experience in molecular diagnostics, Feras held the position of SVP of Molecular Oncology at Sema4, where he later served as CLIA Laboratory Director for the Molecular Oncology Lab. He led a team of molecular geneticists and molecular pathologists in building and implementing molecular oncology test portfolio, overseeing clinical test operations, as well as collaborations on pharmaceutical studies. He also served as adjunct associate professor in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, participating in the fellowship training programs. Prior to this, he served as Senior Scientific Director in the Hematology/Oncology department at Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute where he led the development of molecular diagnostics for solid tumors and hematological malignancies and co-led the clinical operations of the department, deploying tests both nationally and internationally. He also served there as a principal scientist in development of molecular diagnostic tests for molecular genetics.
Throughout his career, Feras has authored multiple publications on molecular diagnostics and phenotypic markers and holds several national and international patents in the field.
Feras earned his M.S. degree from the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his clinical molecular genetics fellowship training at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is board-certified in Clinical Molecular Genetics by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics.