Grail test shows hope in early cancer detection

Study preserves hopes for Roche’s lung cancer drug

CHICAGO, June 25, (RTRS): An experimental blood screening test from Grail Inc showed early promise in detecting early-stage lung cancers based on free-floating DNA released by tumors, according to preliminary results released on Saturday.

The findings, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, were based on a sample of 127 lung cancer patients and 580 healthy people.

The findings represent a first look how a blood test for early-stage cancer would do at detecting lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in the United States often diagnosed at an advanced stage.

Grail’s lung cancer data comes from a wider study that eventually aims to enroll 15,000 participants and cover 20 different types of cancers.

Grail, a Silicon Valley spinoff of sequencing company Illumina Inc, merged last year with Hong Kongbased Cirina Ltd, a private company focused on early cancer detection.

“What we’re generally seeing is a strong blood-based biological signal for cancers that have a high mortality and are typically not screened for,” Dr Anne-Renee Hartman, vice-president of clinical development at Grail, said in a telephone interview.

The research studied the ability of three different prototype sequencing tests to detect cancer in blood samples from people with early to advanced lung cancers.

All three tests identified lung cancers with a low rate of false positives. But they did a better job of detecting later-stage cancers, which shed more DNA fragments, than early-stage cancers, the company’s ultimate goal.

One of the tests, which used sequencing to detect non-hereditary mutations, performed the best. It detected 51 percent of early-stage cancers and 89 percent of late-stage cancers.

Researchers also found that more than half of patients in the study had mutations in their blood that came from white blood cells, and not tumors, requiring them to develop a method to screen those out to prevent false positives.

Dr Geoffrey Oxnard of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who led the study, called the findings “promising early results,” but said the tests need to be validated in a larger group of people.

Cirina’s co-founder David Lo was the first scientist to detect free-floating fetal DNA in the blood of a pregnant woman, kicking off the push to use gene sequencing to find fetal abnormalities, and then cancer, in the blood.

Swiss drugmaker Roche’s hopes of having the first immunotherapy cocktail to be approved as an initial treatment for an aggressive form of lung cancer remained intact on Monday after a trial showed positive survival data.

The company said Tecentriq, combined with chemotherapy, significantly boosted overall survival of patients with previously untreated extensivestage small cell lung cancer compared with chemotherapy alone.

The mixture also helped patients survive longer without their disease getting worse, Sandra Horning, Roche’s chief medical officer, said in a statement.

With rival medicine Keytruda from Merck beating Roche’s immunotherapy alternative to the punch in other, more common forms lung cancer, the Swiss company is continuing efforts to prove Tecentriq’s merits in hopes of being first in rarer types of the disease.

Small cell lung cancers account for 10-15 percent of all lung cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

“These are the first positive Phase III survival results for any immunotherapy-based combination in the initial treatment of extensive-stage small cell lung cancer,” Horning said.

Roche shares were seen rising 1.1 percent, according to pre-market indications.

Specific survival data from the IMpower 133 study were not given, with the company planning to release the numbers at a medical conference. Still, it emphasized the results were “clinically meaningful”.

Baader Helvea analysts said winning a “first mover advantage” in the indication would likely eventually add $1.5 billion to Roche’s Tecentriq sales.

“We see Tecentriq gaining momentum in lung cancer,” said Baader analyst Bruno Bulic.

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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lost an appeal in May in a case alleging that Pfizer had abused its market power by offering big discounts and rebates on Lipitor to pharmacies, which bought large quantities of the drug and agreed to limit re-supply of competing generic atorvastatin products.

The commission said while the full Federal Court last month found that Pfizer had taken advantage of its market power, the court rejected the commission’s view that Pfizer had done so in order to lessen competition.