Blood contains pathogenic secrets encoded in tiny fragments of cell-free circulating DNA (cfDNA), a phenomenon that has been the sparkplug for a new generation of cancer diagnostics. The challenge, in this case, finding tumor cfDNA, has long been likened to finding a needle in a haystack: identifying rare cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragments that betray the presence of a malignancy. But when it comes to chronic disease, the situation flips—rather than an absence of the cfDNA signal, there’s too much of it.
“For many oncology companies, the problem is how to find a very sparse signal,” Ritish Patnaik, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Curve Biosciences, told Inside Precision Medicine. “But for chronic disease, the problem morphs into how do you wade through so much overwhelming noise?”
That insight lies at the heart of Curve Biosciences’ strategy: to translate the analytical precision of liquid biopsy beyond cancer and into the vastly larger, largely untapped field of chronic disease monitoring. The Palo Alto–based startup announced it has raised $40 million to advance its next-generation cfDNA platform, called “whole body intelligence” for mapping DNA methylation patterns in blood to their organs of origin to generate organ-specific insights.
“We have an opportunity to come in with an improved alternative to these poorest areas of care and be able to enter defined reimbursable markets very easily and generate early revenue for the company that allows us to build out a portfolio of products across the chronic disease spectrum,” said Patnaik.
Sorting through the hay
The same biological mechanisms that make liquid biopsy powerful in oncology make it ill-suited for chronic disease. Patients with cancer typically release small quantities of tumor-derived cfDNA, but in diseases such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), kidney fibrosis, or heart failure, entire organs slowly change state, shedding vast amounts of DNA into the bloodstream.
“When you go toward patients with chronic disease, because the disease has often manifested years—if not decades—before detection, you see a significant contribution from diseased organs to the bloodstream,” Patnaik explained. “So the blood of patients with chronic disease looks quite different than that of healthy individuals. You’re not trying to find a trace amount of signal anymore—you’re trying to make sense of chaos.”
To tackle that chaos, Curve developed a fundamentally new technology stack built specifically for chronic disease, which builds upon Patnaik’s graduate work. “What I realized during my PhD work is that to make an impact on patients with chronic disease, we needed a completely different technology than what companies like Grail or Freenome were building at the time,” Patnaik said. “We call that technology whole-body intelligence. It’s designed not to hunt for the needle but to understand the haystack.”
Building a whole-body atlas
The cornerstone of Curve’s approach is the whole-body atlas—a comprehensive biological map that details the DNA methylation patterns of every major organ and tissue type. These methylation signatures act as unique identifiers, allowing the company’s algorithms to trace fragments of cfDNA back to their tissue of origin.
The dataset behind this atlas is enormous. “We have over 400,000 samples’ worth of tissue data for all the different tissue types,” Patnaik said. “That gives us the clarity to pinpoint where the noise is coming from. We can see which organs are contributing to cfDNA, and we can determine whether a disease is progressing or not.”
This organ-level resolution forms the basis of Curve’s AI platform, which learns from the atlas to separate biological signal from background noise. “With whole-body intelligence, we’re cutting down on the confounding noise that limits the performance of AI models trained solely on blood data,” said Patnaik. “That’s what lets us move into chronic disease monitoring effectively.”
Curve’s platform, said Patnaik, represents the third generation of cfDNA testing—building on lessons from prenatal and oncology applications but expanding their scope. “Liquid biopsy has already transformed noninvasive prenatal testing and cancer screening,” Patnaik said. “We see chronic disease as the next frontier. We’re taking a technology beloved in oncology and applying it to an entirely new context. There are 130 million people in the U.S. with a chronic disease, and the standard of care isn’t working for them.”
Product pipeline and early focus
According to Patnaik, understanding how methylation changes from organ to organ and tissue to tissue, Curve’s platform can identify more than 50 disease types—including many chronic diseases.
Curve has already identified its first two products, both addressing high-impact chronic diseases with clear unmet needs. “We’ve generated significant clinical evidence already, and we’re generating more as we move toward 2026,” said Patnaik. “We’ll share more details on our product pipeline next year, including the rationale for those markets and the healthcare economics behind them.”
One early focus area is the liver. “The liver is a very interesting place right now,” Patnaik said. “In the past year, the FDA approved two drugs for MASH, where we previously had none. That opens up enormous opportunity for monitoring. We also see significant needs across the chronic liver disease spectrum that we’re looking to address in our initial products.”
Unlike oncology screening, which often targets asymptomatic individuals, Curve’s tests will integrate into existing specialist workflows. “Our tests aren’t for primary care physicians,” Patnaik explains. “We’re not looking at the OB/GYN or cancer screening markets. We’re focusing on specialists—cardiologists, hepatologists, and nephrologists—who see patients at a regular cadence and already order diagnostic tests as part of standard care.”
Each test’s cadence will depend on the disease’s clinical guidelines. “We’ll fit into existing standards of care,” Patnaik said. “Our goal is to replace inferior diagnostics, not to reinvent the clinical workflow.”
Leadership with liquid biopsy pros
Curve’s $40 million raise stands out in a difficult diagnostics funding environment, something Patnaik attributes to the company’s unique positioning. “We’re seeing a tough fundraising climate overall, but we’ve been able to secure this capital because we’re solving a truly different problem,” he said. “We have differentiated AI, a massive whitespace opportunity, and the right team to execute. That combination gives investors confidence.”
He adds that investor enthusiasm has already accelerated conversations for the company’s next raise. “We’re already getting a lot of inbound interest for our Series B in 2026,” Patnaik said. “We don’t need to raise earlier, but that interest validates what we’re doing.”
A major strength of Curve’s strategy lies in its leadership team—executives who helped define modern cfDNA diagnostics. “We brought in people who’ve built the first and second generations of liquid biopsy,” said Patnaik. “Now they’re helping us build the third.”
He points to chief scientific officer Nathan Hunkapiller, PhD, who previously led R&D at Natera and Grail; chief operating officer Alice Chen, PhD, former head of Product and Program Management at Grail; and chief technology officer Chuba Oyolu, PhD, founding scientist at Counsyl. “They all joined us before we raised our Series A,” Patnaik said. “They were first advisors, but within months they came on full-time. That tells you something about what we’re building here.”
Patnaik also credits Shan Wang, PhD, Curve’s chief innovation officer and scientific founder, a Stanford engineer with more than 300 publications and 70 patents. “Shan’s work on magnetic biosensors and molecular diagnostics really laid the scientific foundation for what we’re doing,” Patnaik notes.
Walking the walk
Ultimately, Patnaik said, the proof will lie in the data. “You can have a great story, but you have to show results,” Patnaik concluded. “We’re working with some of the best institutions in the world on clinical studies to show we outperform the current standard of care. The early data are very encouraging, and next year we’ll have even more to share.”
With its $40 million in fresh capital, Curve Biosciences is positioning itself to rewrite the narrative of cfDNA diagnostics—away from the rarefied pursuit of early cancer signals and toward the everyday burden of chronic disease.
If the company succeeds, whole-body intelligence may do for organ health what liquid biopsy did for oncology: turn the invisible into something measurable, manageable, and meaningful. “We’re pioneering a new era for cfDNA,” said Patnaik. “This is about understanding the entire body, not just one disease. And that’s where the real transformation in patient care will happen.”
