Caris Life Sciences in Arizona

Caris Life Sciences is a cancer diagnostics company headquartered in Irving, Texas, that performs all of its R&D and commercial profiling in its laboratories in Phoenix and Tempe, according to its 2025 annual report. In the second quarter of 2026 it signed a lease for approximately 38,640 rentable square feet of office and laboratory space in Tempe. Its business is molecular profiling of tumors and blood for cancer care: Caris says it develops and commercializes healthcare solutions through the use of comprehensive molecular information and artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms at scale. Customers for its MI Profile test include treating physicians as well as researchers and biopharma companies. Caris says it had performed sequencing on over 1,000,000 cases as of December 31, 2025, and that its Precision Oncology Alliance had 99 members at that date, including over 45 National Cancer Institute designated comprehensive cancer centers.

By its own description, Caris's role in AI is applying it to cancer testing. The company describes its platform as purpose-built to leverage the convergence of next-generation sequencing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and high-performance computing. It says its GPSai and FOLFIRSTai molecular signatures were developed by training and clinically validating AI and machine learning algorithms on its own clinico-genomic datasets, and that one of its tests combines whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing, immunohistochemical analysis and AI analysis to identify the origin of a tumor for 90 unique cancer types with approximately 95% accuracy. Its Arizona laboratories all use NovaSeq 6000 and NovaSeq X sequencing systems. In a 2025 column, the company's president called Arizona a hub for Caris' development of next-generation AI-powered healthcare solutions [not independently verified].

Caris's Arizona history begins with its founding. The company was founded in 2008 when it acquired Molecular Profiling Institute, and a 2020 Phoenix Business Journal report carried by ABC15 said Caris paid about $40 million for the business at a time when it had 50 employees at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. Caris was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in October 2011 and in July 2020 changed its name to Caris Life Sciences, Inc. and re-domiciled to Texas. In 2018 the company announced that its first employee had earned a Ph.D. through a collaborative research program with Arizona State University, and that the University of Arizona Cancer Center and Banner - University Medical Center Tucson had joined its Precision Oncology Alliance.

In October 2020, Caris president David Spetzler said the company employed about 1,000 people at 175,000 square feet of lab space throughout the Valley, and the same report said Caris had about 300 open Phoenix positions [not independently verified]. The company's blood-based clinical laboratory in Phoenix started testing operations in February 2022 after the installation of liquid-handling robots and NovaSeq sequencing systems. Caris announced the lab's opening that April as a $45M liquid biopsy facility, said it was designed to profile blood specimens for up to 1,500 patients per day, and said this third Arizona lab brought its total lab footprint in the state to approximately 160,000 sq. ft. Arizona AI found no later report of the lab's actual daily volume after April 2022. The 2022 footprint figure is smaller than the 2020 figure, so Arizona AI does not treat either as a current total.

According to its 2025 Form 10-K, Caris operates two precision medicine laboratories in Phoenix and one R&D laboratory in Tempe, and performs all of its R&D and commercial profiling in those Arizona labs. In Phoenix it leases an approximately 66,000 square foot solid tissue clinical laboratory, certified under ISO 15189, ISO 13485, CLIA, the College of American Pathologists and the New York State Department of Health, and an approximately 35,500 square foot blood-based clinical laboratory, with leases expiring in 2030 and 2031. It also leases an approximately 54,500 square foot customer service office and an approximately 22,550 square foot warehouse in Phoenix. The Tempe lab is a 59,000 square foot facility, including a cell culture laboratory, where Caris scientists perform proteomics and drug target discovery and validation work. As of October 3, 2026, the company's locations page lists the blood profiling lab at 4415 E. Cotton Center Blvd, a lab and specimen receiving site at 4610 South 44th Place, offices and customer support at 4550 S. 44th Place, and an R&D and bioinformatics office on the 4th floor of 350 W Washington St in Tempe.

Caris is still adding Arizona space. In the second quarter of 2026 it signed a lease for approximately 38,640 rentable square feet of office and laboratory space on the sixth floor of the Papago Gateway Center at 350 West Washington Street in Tempe, with an initial term of approximately 10.7 years expiring in January 2037. In a November 2025 column, company president David Spetzler wrote that Caris has invested more than $450 million in Arizona since 2008, building five major facilities approaching 270,000 square feet in total and creating jobs for more than 950 Arizonans [not independently verified]. Those are the company's own figures; no public filing Arizona AI reviewed confirms them.

Among its accomplishments, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Caris's MI Cancer Seek test on November 6, 2024 as a companion diagnostic to identify cancer patients who may benefit from targeted therapies. Caris says MI Cancer Seek is the first and only simultaneous whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing assay with FDA-approved companion diagnostic indications for molecular profiling of solid tumors. The company completed its initial public offering on June 20, 2025, selling 23,529,412 shares of common stock, and its stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker CAI. Worldwide revenue was $812.0 million in 2025, up 97.0% from $412.3 million in 2024.

Caris also carries risks. In March 2025 it received a Civil Investigative Demand from the U.S. Department of Justice in an investigation under the False Claims Act about its compliance with Medicare's date of service rule, and it still disclosed the matter as pending in its filing for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 [not independently verified]. The 10-K does not tie the investigation to Arizona. The company says it is in the process of locating facilities for additional laboratory capacity and is contemplating building additional laboratory space in Texas, where it also lists a 114,500 square foot Irving office facility still being built out [not independently verified]. Arizona AI found no later update on the Texas laboratory plan after the 2025 annual report filed in March 2026; the only new lease it found since then is the 2026 Tempe lease. Caris had 1,846 employees worldwide at December 31, 2025, none represented by a union. Public filings do not identify an Arizona-specific headcount, so Arizona AI does not attribute that total to Arizona.

Taken together, the filings show that Caris keeps its headquarters in Texas but runs all of its commercial cancer testing and research from Phoenix and Tempe, and that it signed a new Tempe lease in 2026 while, as of its 2025 annual report, it was weighing new laboratory space in Texas.