Personalis announces NeXT Personal test data at ASCO

The company states: “Personalis announced that data presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology oral podium talks in Chicago, IL demonstrated that the Personalis NeXT Personal test had exceptional detection rates and performance for early-stage breast cancer and immunotherapy monitoring. The NeXT Personal test is the first of a new class of ultra-sensitive liquid biopsy tests designed to detect the earliest traces of cancer recurrence and monitor a patient’s response to therapy. The test can detect circulating tumor DNA down to an ultra-sensitive range and the data presented as ASCO highlights the clinical importance of this approach. Several hundred thousand cancer patients are put on immunotherapy treatment annually. While over 40% of patients with cancer are eligible for immunotherapy, only ~12% of patients respond, underscoring the need for a blood test that monitors treatment response for patients, doctors, and payers. An oral presentation showed the importance of NeXT Personal’s use for immunotherapy monitoring. Dr. Rodrigo Toledo at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) presented data in an oral presentation that demonstrated that the baseline levels and the changes in levels of ctDNA detected by NeXT Personal are highly predictive of therapy response and clinical outcomes for late-stage cancer patients receiving immunotherapy. This includes the finding that patients who had a significant decrease in ctDNA levels from baseline to the third cycle of immunotherapy had overall survival that was more than two times longer than those who did not. They also demonstrated that NeXT Personal had an average lead time for detecting progression of 81 days over imaging.”