This Startup Wants To Catch Cancer Before It Spreads
From Y Combinator Startup Podcast by Y Combinator
April 6, 2026 · 21 min
About this episode
The episode discusses how BillionToOne is revolutionizing prenatal testing and aims to apply their technology for early-stage cancer detection.
1 in 11 babies born in America this year will be screened by a genetic test that didn't exist a decade ago.Biotech startup BillionToOne turned a simple but radical idea—detecting rare fragments of fetal DNA in a mother's blood—into one of the most widely used prenatal tests in the U.S. And they're not stopping there. The same approach could unlock something even bigger: early-stage cancer detection from a blood test, a breakthrough that could one day save millions of lives.In this episode of Hard Tech, YC's Jared Friedman sits down with David Tsao and Oguzhan Atay to hear how they went from half a lab bench to a $4B biotech company—and why they believe this is just the beginning of what their technology can do.
People in this episode
Host: Jared Friedman
Guests: David Tsao, Oguzhan Atay
Topics covered
- biotech
- cancer detection
- prenatal testing
- genetic testing
- startup growth
Keywords
- BillionToOne
- cancer detection
- prenatal tests
- fetal DNA
- biotech startup
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: BillionToOne, Y Combinator
Places: America
More episodes of Y Combinator Startup Podcast
- "The CEO Must Be the Chief AI Officer" · June 10, 2026 · 54 min
- How to Build an AI-Native Services Company · June 3, 2026 · 11 min
- How To Build Superintelligence Inside Your Company · May 27, 2026 · 46 min
- How The Best Companies Defend Against Mediocrity And Rot · May 25, 2026 · 50 min
- Paul Graham: Should you move to Silicon Valley? · May 13, 2026 · 22 min
- Tokenmaxxing: How Top Builders Use AI To Do The Work Of 400 Engineers · May 8, 2026 · 41 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast podcast page.