Foresight Diagnostics to Present Clinical Data of Industry-Leading Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) Technology in Lymphoma and Lung Cancer at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting

AURORA, Colo., June 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Foresight Diagnostics, a privately-held cancer diagnostic company, announced today that two abstracts that report the clinical performance of its minimal residual disease (MRD) detection platform in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were chosen for presentation at the virtual 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting on June 4-8, 2021.

The posters demonstrate the utility of Foresight Diagnostics proprietary PhasED-Seq technology to improve MRD detection rates in low disease burden settings in DLBCL and NSCLC patients. 

Details of the posters to be presented:
Abstract 7565: Phased variants improve DLBCL minimal residual disease detection at the end of therapy

Detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has prognostic value in DLBCL and could facilitate minimal residual disease (MRD) driven approaches. ctDNA detection has potential to change management of DLBCL in the clinic, however detection is still challenging in low-disease burden states (i.e., detection of MRD at the end of therapy). It is shown that phased variants (PVs) are common in B-cell lymphomas and occur in stereotyped locations, enabling an 'off-the-shelf' approach that does not require tumor tissue or patient-specific customization. PhasED-Seq (Phased Variant Enrichment & Detection Sequencing) can identify and track PVs for improved ctDNA MRD detection down to parts-per-million levels. The PhasED-Seq technology improves MRD detection compared to SNV-based methods at interim and end-of-treatment time-points for DLBCL.

Abstract 8518: Leveraging phased variants for personalized minimal residual disease detection in localized non-small cell lung cancer

The sensitivity of existing MRD methods that track single nucleotide variants (SNVs) is suboptimal due to the background error rates of SNVs. Phased variants (PVs) have a lower background error-rate than SNVs resulting in improved ctDNA MRD detection rates. PhasED-Seq was developed and applied to detect low-burden MRD in localized-stage lung cancer. PhasED-Seq improves MRD detection rates in lung cancer patients with low disease burden while maintaining high specificity. Phased variants were found to be common in most tumor types and can be applied to other cancers.

Due to the virtual nature of the annual meeting, pre-recorded presentations of each poster will be released for on-demand viewing on June 4, 2021 at 9:00 AM (EDT).

"We are pleased to present this compelling data on the PhasED-Seq technology at ASCO this year," says David Kurtz (MD/PhD), a Stanford University professor and co-founder of Foresight Diagnostics who will present the abstracts. "We show that PhasED-Seq more accurately distinguishes between patients who were cured and patients in need of additional therapy following curative intent treatment. This improved sensitivity for MRD detection in low-disease-burden settings will pave the way for adapted approaches to personalized therapy and novel clinical trial designs."

Learn more about attending the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting at https://conferences.asco.org/am/attend. 

About Foresight Diagnostics
Foresight Diagnostics is a privately-held cancer diagnostics company. The company has developed a novel liquid biopsy testing platform for the measurement of minimal residual disease (MRD) that is broadly applicable to a variety of cancers and that is significantly more sensitive than existing tests (with a detection limit below 0.0001% or one part-per-million). This improved sensitivity provides actionable information to physicians and biopharmaceutical companies to enable more personalized treatment approaches for patients. For more information, please visit www.foresight-dx.com and follow us on Twitter @ForesightDx and on LinkedIn.

About PhasED-Seq
The Foresight MRD platform is based on the PhasED-Seq technology (Phased variant Enrichment and Detection by Sequencing). Similar to duplex sequencing, PhasED-Seq lowers the error profile of mutation detection in sequencing data by requiring the concordant detection of two separate non-reference events in an individual DNA molecule. However, unlike duplex sequencing, both events occur on the same sequencing read pair, thereby increasing the efficiency of genome recovery. By detecting more than one mutation, PhasED-Seq can more accurately distinguish tumor-derived cell free DNA (i.e. ctDNA) from healthy cell free DNA – enabling detection of ctDNA at levels below one part-per-million (<0.0001%). PhasED-Seq has been extensively validated in hundreds of patients with B-cell lymphomas and Foresight is actively advancing the assay in solid tumors.

Contact Foresight
Name: Mukul Agarwal
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Foresight Diagnostics