The Guardant360 assay accurately detected genomic alterations that permit patient matching to targeted therapies, according to a presentation of the plasmaMATCH study at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The study is the largest ever performed for a liquid biopsy.
TORONTO – “I don’t want this to die in the lab. We’re putting a lot of effort into this and we have to commercialize it.” With those words Oleksandr Bubon, chief technology officer of Thunder Bay, Ontario-based startup Radialis Inc., in 2016 reported ambitious plans for an imaging device that detects early stage cancer tumors in the densest breast tissue. Not only will its novel “gapless” design prevent radiation needed to treat cancer cells from escaping, a common problem in conventional positron emissions tomography (PET), its manufacture and commercialization starts here in a northern Ontario city of just over 110,000 people.
PARIS – A team of medical researchers and engineers from the Gustave Roussy Institute, in Villejuif, France, and Paris-Sud University recently developed an artificial intelligence system called Resolved2, designed to assess prospective cancer drugs. As Loïc Verlingue, lead cancer specialist on the data science team at the Gustave Roussy Institute, explained to BioWorld MedTech, “this AI is intended to predict efficiently whether a cancer treatment molecule will achieve authorization or not within six years of pharmacological data and phase I clinical trials.”
Irving, Texas-based Caris Life Sciences Inc. has launched an AI-based genomic profiling test to better characterize cases of cancer of unknown primary origin (CUP) and atypical cases and offer appropriate treatment options. Known as the MI GPS (Genomic Profiling Similarity) Score, the analysis is based on an AI analysis of a 592-gene panel of all the clinically relevant genetic biomarkers for cancer.
Lantheus Holdings Inc., of North Billerica, Mass., has entered a strategic collaboration with Paris-based Carthera SAS for the use of its microbubbles in combination with Carthera’s investigational Sonocloud system. The implantable device is in development for the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma, a fast-growing brain tumor with a post-diagnosis median survival of just 15 months. The new deal furthers two of Lantheus’ strategic goals, finding new applications for its microbubbles and expanding its footprint in oncology.
LONDON – Advanced Oncotherapy plc is starting verification and validation of the world’s first linear proton beam accelerator system, which is assembled and ready for testing at the Daresbury particle physics laboratory in Cheshire, U.K.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Akoya Biosciences Inc. has scooped up $50 million in financing, with an eye toward growing via the expansion of commercial and operational resources and continuing product development activities around its platforms for spatial biology.
The Medicare coverage memo for next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) was reopened to allow for NGS testing for other than late-stage cancers, but stakeholders are urging the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to allow repeat testing, another change that would considerably boost utilization.
HONG KONG – Lucence Diagnostics Pte Ltd., a genomic medicine company headquartered in Singapore, has secured $20 million in series A investment. The company is focused on inventing liquid biopsy tests for cancer screening and personalizing care.
There are a pair of approved CAR T drugs, Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) from Gilead Sciences Inc. and Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) from Novartis AG, that have been available since 2017 for a few hematological cancers including some lymphomas and leukemias. But little is known about how these engineered chimeric antigen receptor T cells that both target CD19, an antigen prevalent in the cells of many B-cell malignancies, move through the body and proliferate after they are first removed, altered, expanded in number and, finally, returned to a patient's body.
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