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Next-generation sequencing leads to expanded use of targeted therapies
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PARIS – A next-generation sequencing diagnostic assay must be optimized for clinicians so that the report is clear and actionable, according to a presenter.
“The vision we have … is the belief that the molecular pattern of cancers is going to lead to better therapies, he said.
“The goal [at Foundation Medicine] is that by doing next generation targeted sequencing we are not restricting ourselves on what genes we are looking at; on the other hand, we are not doing whole genome sequencing,” said Gary A. Palmer, MD, JD, MBA, MPH, of Foundation Medicine, at the WIN 2013 Symposium.
Gary A. Palmer
Currently, Foundation Medicine is looking at 236 genes.
This allows them to “sequence very deeply. We can pick up the known actionable alterations but also make discoveries.”
The test has been ordered by more than one thousand oncologists in the US.
Palmer said that the reason the FoundationOne test is relevant today is due to the amount of markers being discovered and the number of new drugs that are going to be available to the clinician.
“Doing one off or even 3 off, looking for just a small tumor panel, is just not going to be relevant,” Palmer said.
Because the clinician is most important, the company focused on providing a report (delivered 14 to 17 days from receipt of specimen) that the clinician can interpret, he said. The FoundationOne Report includes all the biologic drivers that are found, and then an actionability table: if there is an FDA approved drug against that alteration; if there is an FDA approved drug in the tumor type or an FDA approved drug in a different tumor type; and applicable clinical trials.
The company has started a registry “light” to discover how community oncologists have acted on the alterations with the goal of doing the genotype/phenotype correlation. The registry – developed with Google – allows community oncologists to enter data about a patient’s rare alteration tumor type and the treatment given. In turn, the community oncologists can search the database for information about drug success in rare tumors.
The field is moving fast, he said. “We have gone from being able to identify novel alterations to responses in a reasonably short period of time,” Palmer said.
During WIN 2013 Symposium, three companies presented on their current technologies for detecting and assessing genetic aberrations – Illumina, Life Technologies and Foundation Medicine.
Disclosure: Palmer is a Foundation Medicine employee and stockholder.
For more information:
Palmer G. #L1.06. Presented at: WIN 2103 Symposium; July 10-12, 2013; Paris, France.