A month after Illumina's big Grail buyout, Exact Sciences scoops up liquid biopsy rival Thrive for a relative bargain

Today, Exact Sciences announced that it will acquire Thrive, Grail’s chief rival among the early cancer detection startups, for a sizeable but relatively moderate $2.15 billion. The yawning gap in part reflects the vast differences in capital that have been invested to date in each company, but both have gone toe-to-toe over the last couple years, with Thrive having produced more data than their higher valued rival.