Cancer Blood Test Under Development Based on MD Anderson Tech

Quest Diagnostics and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) are teaming up to battle cancer.

The pair are working together to improve the assessment of elevated cancer risk in individuals who would benefit from medically appropriate cancer screenings. Specifically, Quest plans to 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.

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 North American providers next year. 

Quest expects the future test will supplement—but not replace—conventional screening methods by providing insights to help providers identify patients that would benefit from medically appropriate screening or other evaluations. 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, according to Quest.

Only 51% of U.S. adults admit to having 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, at 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.”

Quest Diagnostics provides diagnostic insights from the results of its laboratory testing to empower people, physicians, and organizations to improve health outcomes. Derived from one of the world’s largest databases of de-identifiable clinical lab results, Quest’s diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors, and improve healthcare management. Quest Diagnostics annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United States, and it employs more than 55,000 workers.