NovellusDx presents data from studies on Precision Cancer Analysis platform at PMWC 2015

Jan 27 2015

Novel Diagnostic Helping Answer U.S. President's Call for Action on Precision Medicine Initiative

NovellusDx, the leading Precision Cancer Analysis™ company delivering actionable intelligence about the mutational hierarchies that drive each patient’s cancer progression, announced today that the company will highlight data from studies on its Precision Cancer Analysis™ platform, at the Personalized Medicine World Conference 2015 in Silicon Valley.

Michael Vidne, PhD, Director of Business Development at NovellusDx, will provide an overview of the company’s technology and its potential for helping oncologists realize the promise of targeted cancer therapies for more patients on Monday, January 26 at 11:45 a.m. PT at the conference, which is taking place through January 28 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

The company is also exhibiting an overview of the Precision Cancer Analysis platform at booth number 17.

“By measuring the activity of the different signaling pathways within a tumor, NovellusDx’s Precision Cancer Analysis system can prioritize the importance of the existing mutations and direct for a better drug selection for a better patient care,” said Prof. Nir Peled, a leading Israeli oncologist and the head of the Screening and Early Prevention Committee of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).  “This represents a significant step in improving personalized approaches for cancer treatment and will provide oncologists actionable molecular intelligence about each patient’s cancer so they can precisely tailor therapies that improve outcomes.”

Although genetic mutations can readily be detected using currently available technologies, there’s a need for an advanced platform that can help determine the individual functions of each mutation and clinical significance of each in the presence of other mutations and when exposed to targeted therapies. The lack of functional characterization of mutations is a fundamental roadblock in the ability to generate clinical utility in personalized medicine.

“In his State of the Union Address on January 20, President Obama called on the healthcare industry to develop new personalized approaches for treating illnesses that are based on a patient's individual genetic blueprint and molecular subtypes of diseases to improve the chances of successful treatment,” Vidne said. “While personalized approaches to treating cancer theoretically confer significant advantages, existing targeted therapies have not yet delivered on their initial promise. NovellusDx’s Precision Cancer Analysis platform overcomes limitations of currently available next-generation sequencing technologies by analyzing the full landscape of tumor mutations and the hierarchy of driver mutations that govern cancer progression. We believe we have the only test that accurately measures the activity induced by a mutation’s response to different therapies so oncologists can provide the best therapy to patients.”

Going beyond identifying the mere presence of a mutation, the NovellusDx platform quantifies the activity of the vast majority of the oncogenic signaling pathways before and after administration of a panel of drugs and drug combinations in the patient’s specific mutational landscape. This allows NovellusDx to report the response of the patient’s tumor, based on its signaling pathway activity profiles, to the oncologist for a panel of available drugs and drug combinations.

NovellusDx’s Precision Cancer Analysis platform measures the signaling pathway activity altered by the patients’ oncogenic mutations adding significant value to next-generation sequencing technologies. Since the assay produces a quantitative output, it is also possible to grade the different mutants that are identified, allowing clinicians to prioritize drug candidates based on their likelihood of efficacy. Additionally, the NovellusDx assay directly measures how different pharmacological agents alter the cell signaling pathway, helping the treating physician choose between therapies with common targets.