Tempus buys cancer diagnostics firm Personalis for $1.5B
Precision medicine group Tempus AI announced Monday that it will be acquiring Personalis, a California-based cancer testing company, in a deal valued at $1.5 billion.
In a statement, Tempus said it will be paying a 6% premium over the market price for Personalis, which will be scooped up for $16.25 per share. Up to half of the total buyout could be paid in cash, and the transaction may be finalized before the year ends, possibly extending into 2027.
With the buyout, Tempus will be more equipped to support cancer patients with diagnostics and custom treatment services, the company said. Personalis’ proprietary molecular residual disease (MRD) test is very sensitive, and can spot even small traces of cancerous DNA, detecting cancer before standard imaging would be capable of doing so.
The technology is valuable post-surgery to test a patient’s blood for any sign of the disease remaining after something like a tumor extraction, where cutting cancer out of the body sometimes involves a bit of guesswork.
Notably, long before the buyout, Tempus and Personalis had been collaborating, with the AI company relying on MRD results for up-to-date information on a patient’s health status. That deal dates back to 2023, with the two companies entering into a co-commercialization agreement that made the cancer test and Tempus AI a package deal for oncology providers and researchers.
"MRD is a large and rapidly growing market with the potential to truly transform how cancer patients are monitored, helping clinicians make faster and more informed decisions when cancer recurs,” Eric Lefkofsky, CEO of Tempus, said in a press release. “Through our existing collaboration with Personalis, we have already demonstrated the strength of combining highly sensitive MRD technology with our commercial infrastructure.”
“With clinical adoption and reimbursement momentum building, we are collectively well positioned to capture this opportunity, which makes this acquisition particularly exciting.”
During a call with investors on Monday, Lefkofsky said that Tempus had considered buying Personalis back when the partnership began, but it was determined that the latter needed some time to grow and scale, as its MRD test was new to market.
Growing acceptance of tumor-informed testing
Since then the Personalis test has garnered mainstream acceptance, earning coverage approval from Medicare when used for three types of cancer diagnosis. More are expected to follow as MRD continues to show its value as a tool to improve patient monitoring and rapid diagnosis, Tempus stated.
Commercial insurance also covers the blood test for numerous indications.
Notably, Tempus already had MRD offerings of its own, but nothing as sensitive as what Personalis is doing, as it uses a sample of previous cancer to pinpoint any sign of remaining DNA from that disease anywhere in a patient.
Tempus’ current MRD testing capabilities are not tumor-informed, meaning they scan for signs of cancer more broadly. Lefkofsky said the current market trends are moving toward tumor-informed as the primary diagnostic methodology, given the enhanced accuracy.
Personalis sold over 10,000 tests in the second quarter of 2026 alone, generating $22.4 million in revenue.
On news of the buyout, Tempus’ stock price jumped 1.2%, trading at roughly $48.98 a share on Monday.
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