Lucence today announced the commercial availability of Tissue500™ as a comprehensive tissue diagnostics platform for accurate therapy matching. Tissue500™ can be applied for the measurement of biomarkers such as RNA fusions and microsatellite instability (MSI) status, thereby enabling the molecular characterization of tumors.
Driven by the unmet need for better cancer diagnostics specific to Asian ethnicities, Tissue500™ is a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) test enriched for cancer biomarkers prevalent in Asian patients. Covering 572 genes and 71 RNA fusions curated for 15 Asian-specific cancer types, comprehensive total nucleic acid genomic analysis in a single Tissue500™ test could help to match patients to FDA-approved targeted therapies and available clinical trials. The short two-week turnaround time to results enables an optimal window for treatment.
“Asia alone contributes to almost 50% of the global cancer incidence in 20201, and current diagnostics are targeted largely towards the Western population,” said Dr. Min-Han Tan, Founding CEO and Medical Director at Lucence. “With deep analysis into the genes responsible for Asian cancers, we believe that Tissue500™ will be a powerful tool for oncologists to select personalized and timely treatment, thereby improving patient survival outcomes.”
The successful translation of research into product can be attributed to a two-year collaboration by SingHealth, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)’s Diagnostics Development (DxD) Hub, Singapore General Hospital (SGH), National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) and Lucence. The team comprising oncologists, pathologists, clinician scientists, researchers, product developers and bioinformaticians worked together to develop the test and validate the technology on clinical specimens. The test has been validated on more than 10 cancer types, proving the utility of Tissue500™ and enabling the test to be integrated with informatics know-how developed by the product team. Performance data from this test is scheduled to be presented at the Frontiers of Cancer Science Conference in November 2021.
“The research on Asian prevalent cancers at NCCS has provided the data and genes that led to the development of these new diagnostic tools,” said Prof Teh Bin Tean, Deputy Medical Director (Research) of NCCS and a lead member of the team. “We are excited that NCCS is a part of this collaboration that will improve patient care.”
“DxD Hub is constantly on the lookout for diagnostic innovations and solutions that enable more personalized care across patient journeys. We are pleased to be part of this collaboration with SingHealth and Lucence to value-add to the testing process for Asian patients, via our product development and clinical validation capabilities,” said Dr Weng Ruifen, CTO of DxD Hub, Singapore’s national diagnostics platform.
“To make a real impact on the care of cancer patients, it is critical for collaborators to tap on each other’s strengths, experiences, and capabilities,” said Professor Tan Puay Hoon, Senior Consultant, Department of Anatomical Pathology, and Chairman, Division of Pathology at SGH. “The ability to identify the right therapy is critical for patients, especially those who are not responding well to current standard-of-care treatment, or have recurrent and metastatic disease. This is another step towards more personalized medicine and treatment which SGH has been working on.”
Tissue500™ serves as a testimonial to the importance of public-private partnerships to achieve sustainable innovation – potentially benefiting cancer patients in Singapore and around the world. As of September 2021, DxD Hub has agreed on commercializing the Tissue500™ technology through Lucence, which is now available to order.
For non-US physicians only.
References
- Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel RL, Laversanne M, Soerjomataram I, Jemal A, Bray F. Global Cancer Statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN Estimates of Incidence and Mortality Worldwide for 36 Cancers in 185 Countries. CA Cancer J Clin. 2021 May;71(3):209-249. doi: 10.3322/caac.21660. Epub 2021 Feb 4. PMID: 33538338.