Quest Diagnostics a leading provider of diagnostic information services, announced a collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) designed to improve the assessment of elevated risk of cancer in individuals who would benefit from medically appropriate cancer screenings.
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Under terms of the agreement, Quest will develop and validate a laboratory-developed blood test based on circulating protein biomarkers associated with high risk for one or more cancers, including colorectal, lung, breast, pancreatic, ovarian, liver, prostate, esophageal and stomach. Quest will base the test on a developmental license to technology and intellectual property associated with the Multi-Cancer Stratification Test (MCaST), a cohesive risk model developed by the laboratory of Samir Hanash, M.D., Ph.D., at MD Anderson. Dr. Hanash and his team identified a set of biomarkers that inform the model through extensive clinical research conducted on screening study cohorts involving tens of thousands of individuals. Quest plans to refine and further develop and validate the MCaST technology for its own lab-developed test.
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Assuming successful test validation, the parties may agree for Quest to exercise rights to commercialize the test, with the goal to make it available to providers in North America in 2026.
Quest expects the future test will supplement, not replace, conventional screening methods, by providing insights to help providers identify patients that would benefit from medically appropriate screening or other forms of evaluation. Conventional screening methods target a limited number of cancers and only one at a time, often with invasive or costly procedures that patients resist. While multi-cancer early detection (MCED) liquid biopsy tests that detect cancer DNA in circulating blood are convenient, they are comparatively expensive, not intended to personalize risk, and may lack well-established protocols for clinical follow-up.
Only 51% of U.S. adults say they have had a routine medical appointment or routine cancer screening in the last year.
“One of the biggest problems in cancer care today is patients skipping preventive screenings because the methods are too invasive, inconvenient or unaffordable,” said Mark Gardner, senior vice president, Oncology, Genomics and R&D, Quest Diagnostics. “Another huge problem is a lack of tests for infrequent, but often deadly cancers, like pancreatic cancer. Building on proteomics discoveries from Dr. Hanash and his team, Quest intends to create a simple blood test anyone can conveniently access and reasonably afford to identify risk of a range of cancers. A patient identified with elevated risk may be more inclined to pursue preventive cancer screening or other medical assessments that could identify cancer in early, more treatable stages of disease.”
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Source – PR Newswire
