Foresight Diagnostics to demonstrate utility of PhasED-Seq technology at ICML meeting

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jun 18 2021

Foresight Diagnostics, the emerging leader in blood-based lymphoma disease monitoring, announced today that clinical performance of its minimal residual disease (MRD) detection platform in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) will be presented at the 16th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) on June 18-22, 2021. The oral presentation demonstrates the utility of Foresight Diagnostics' proprietary PhasED-Seq technology to improve MRD detection rates in DLBCL patients in low-disease burden settings.

Foresight's MRD testing platform can detect relapsing disease 200 days earlier than current methods in DLBCL patients receiving first-line therapy. We believe that such early detection constitutes the future standard for ctDNA-guided patient monitoring and treatment in the clinic and for drug development applications. We're proud that our abstract was selected for oral presentation at this year's ICML meeting and are excited to share this impactful data."

David Kurtz, MD, PhD, Stanford University professor and Co-Founder of Foresight Diagnostics

Kurtz will present the talk at ICML. The presentation, titled "Phased variants improve DLBCL minimal residual disease detection at the end of therapy" will be presented during Session 3: Aggressive Lymphomas (Channel 3) on Sunday, June 20 at 17:45-19:15 (CEST).

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) detection has prognostic value in DLBCL and has the potential to change the management of lymphoma in the clinic. But detection is still challenging in low-disease burden states with existing methods, such as MRD detection at the end of therapy.

Foresight's talk at ICML will introduce Phased Variant Enrichment & Detection Sequencing (PhasED-Seq), Foresight's proprietary ctDNA technology that leverages a novel class of somatic alteration called "phased variants" (PVs). By identifying and tracking PVs, PhasED-Seq enables ctDNA MRD detection down to parts-per-million levels, providing levels of sensitivity that are significantly better than SNV-based methods. The talk will also demonstrate that PVs are common in B-cell lymphomas and occur in stereotyped locations, enabling an "off-the-shelf" approach to variant monitoring that does not require tumor tissue or patient-specific customization.

"While many patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are cured using standard therapies, there remains a great need to accurately identify those who are not cured and would benefit from new therapeutic strategies," states Foresight Board Member Mark Lee, MD, PhD, a founding executive at GRAIL and most recently SVP and Global Head of Personalized Healthcare at Genentech. "The improved sensitivity for ctDNA-based MRD detection during and after treatment showcases the potential for PhasED-Seq as the new standard for lymphoma MRD applications, such as MRD-adapted clinical trials."

Foresight Diagnostics recently announced a $12.5M Series A financing to accelerate the commercialization of the PhasED-Seq technology and also presented clinical performance data on PhasED-Seq at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. Foresight's first commercially available test offering will be a CLIA-validated B-cell lymphoma MRD assay, and the company is initiating retrospective and prospective clinical studies with multiple partners to evaluate the utility of the assay in patients with a variety of B-cell malignancies.