On August 15, 2022 Personalis, Inc. has reported a collaboration with BC Cancer to deploy a personalized liquid biopsy-based research use only (RUO) assay for a study of patients with colorectal and pancreatic cancers (Press release, Personalis, AUG 15, 2022, View Source [SID1234618388]). The research efforts will deploy Personalis’ NeXT Personal, which has demonstrated high sensitivity for detecting circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) from a patient’s blood sample, to determine the best time to draw blood for ctDNA sampling for molecular residual disease (MRD) detection. MRD describes a very small number of cancer cells that remain in the body during or after treatment.
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Identification and tracking of MRD is an emerging focus in the clinical care of patients with gastrointestinal cancers such as colorectal and pancreatic cancer, which may improve overall clinical management throughout a patient’s journey. Researchers are also hoping to show that ctDNA is useful in identifying cancer progression before the current standard of care tests and use the data to do an economic analysis to assess cost-effectiveness for healthcare systems.
"ctDNA surveillance may allow earlier detection of cancer recurrence or progression, and therefore earlier intervention, which may improve patient survival," said Dr. Jonathan Loree, Medical Oncologist at BC Cancer and Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. "In addition, because utilizing ctDNA for ongoing clinical management has the potential to reduce healthcare expenditures, our partnered research with Personalis will assess the costs of ctDNA-based surveillance compared to MRI/CT based surveillance."
"We believe the clinical management of cancer can substantially improve with early determination of patient response and by accurately informing changes to treatment regimens. Such determinations offer the potential to avoid unnecessary toxicities, improve cost-effectiveness, and increase survival," said Dr. Richard Chen, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of R&D at Personalis. "By collaborating with researchers at BC Cancer on this multifaceted study, we hope to accelerate advances in oncology practice via ultra-sensitive MRD detection."
Approximately 220 patients will be recruited for this study from across British Columbia to assess how ctDNA can improve cancer care delivery.
About NeXT Personal
NeXT Personal is a next-generation, tumor-informed liquid biopsy assay designed to detect and quantify MRD and recurrence in patients previously diagnosed with cancer. The assay is designed to deliver industry-leading MRD sensitivity down to the 1 part-per-million range, an approximately 10- to 100-fold improvement over other available technologies. It leverages whole genome sequencing of a patient’s tumor to identify up to 1,800 specially selected somatic variants that are subsequently used to create a personalized liquid biopsy panel for each patient. This may enable earlier detection across a broader variety of cancers and stages, including typically challenging early-stage, low mutational burden, and low-shedding cancers. NeXT Personal is also designed to simultaneously detect and quantify clinically relevant mutations in ctDNA that may be used in the future to help guide therapy when cancer is detected. These include known targetable cancer mutations, drug resistance mutations, and new variants that can emerge and change over time, especially under therapeutic pressure.