Almac validates novel test for ovarian cancer
Aims to bring assay to market in 2015
The Almac Group’s Diagnostics Business Unit has announced the validated results of the ALM AADx assay, a gene expression test that identifies a subgroup of high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) patients that have a good prognosis following standard of care chemotherapy.
This subgroup exhibited worse progression free and overall survival following the addition of bevacizumab within the ICON7 translational dataset.
Patients whose tumours fell outside this molecular subgroup exhibited a trend towards improved progression free survival.
The molecular subgroup is defined by the absence of angiogenesis and represents 40% of the HGSOC population. It was identified by Almac in collaboration with Professor Charlie Gourley from the University of Edinburgh. The current work represents an independent validation of the assay and was carried out in collaboration with the UK's Medical Research Council.
Unsupervised hierarchical clustering by Almac found three molecular subgroups within HGSOC; one with angiogenic gene inactivation and immune gene upregulation with better overall survival rates; and two with angiogenic gene upregulation and a corresponding worse overall survival rate following standard of care first line chemotherapy.
Professor Gourley presented these results at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago, US.
Almac developed a 63 gene test that can identify the good prognosis angiogenesis inactive subgroup and independently validated the test within the ICON7 translational data set.
The company will perform additional validation studies of the test in HGSOC and in other cancer types.
Almac believes the test will also work for other anti-angiogenic compounds that function in a similar manner as well as for other diseases. The company has now engaged with the US and European regulators to bring this assay to market next year.
