New Genomic Profiling Kit May Provide More Accessible Testing and Personalized Care to Patients with Cancer

The launch of the AVENIO Tumor Tissue Comprehensive Genomic Profiling (CGP) Kit could bring a more personalized medicine approach to patients with cancer by making genetic testing more readily accessible, according to a press release from the developer, Roche.

A future iteration of the kit, which complements currently the CGP portfolio at Roche, may bring additional resources to clinicians to help them diagnose and treat cancer, as well as presently enabling laboratories to further expand their oncology research efforts in house. Deviating from the results garnered from smaller panels including hotspot and single gene tests, CGP testing offers comprehensive information in a single test on complex genomic information on tumor mutational burden, microsatellite instability, and loss of heterozygosity.

“To treat cancer effectively, we must understand what drives it at a molecular level. CGP helps inform decisions about available treatment options, including targeted therapies, immunotherapies, tumor-agnostic treatments and clinical trial participation, based on the unique genomic profile of a patient’s tumor,” Thomas Schinecker, chief executive officer at Roche Diagnostics, said in a press release.

The kit is a research use only, next generation sequencing test can offer an end-to-end workflow from DNA extraction and library preparation to a generation of variant results obtained via the FoundationOne Analysis platform. The gene panel was based on the FoundationOne platform, which was designed to match the FoundationOne CDx panel in order to assess 324 cancer related genes in 4 main classes of genomic alterations and genomic signatures that have been known to result in cancer.

Every kit can run 24 samples and can be completed within 5 days from DNA isolation to variant results. The AVENIO CPG kit runs on Illumina IVD systems’ NextSeq 500/550 RUO, as well as NextSeq 550 Dx System in research mode. The 2 companies entered into an agreement in January 2020 to develop, produce, and commercialize AVENIO tests for both tissue and blood utilizing Illumina’s IVD systems.

The kit will launch in multiple regions across the world, and Roche is planning to add additional solutions to the portfolio.

“The launch of this kit will significantly expand access to genomic profiling globally by providing an in-house solution for those who cannot otherwise access our portfolio of tests through our centralised laboratories,” Brian Alexander, chief executive officer at Foundation Medicine, said in a press release.

Reference

Roche launches comprehensive genomic profiling kit to expand access to personalised cancer research. News Release. Roche. October 25, 2021. Accessed October 28, 2021. https://bit.ly/3CseK1Q