OGT to develop tumour profiling assay to facilitate personalised cancer treatment

Company receives £1.16m award from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board

24-Jun-2011 - United Kingdom

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) has announced that it has received a funding award of £1.16 million from the UK government-backed Technology Strategy Board. As part of the project, OGT will develop a tumour profiling assay based on targeted panel enrichment and next generation sequencing (NGS). The new assay would improve cancer care by providing specific information about each individual sufferer, thereby facilitating the design of personalised treatment strategies. This would minimise the use of untargeted, aggressive primary treatments, which are often unnecessary and ineffective, while simultaneously improving the patient experience and increasing survival rates. OGT is well positioned to develop such a screening tool, as the company has considerable experience in providing solutions to the clinical research market and already offers sequencing and microarray services and products as part of its Genefficiency™ and CytoSure™ offerings.

As part of the new project, OGT will utilise its expertise in the design of high-quality, high-throughput genomic services to develop a flexible tumour profiling assay that reduces sample processing costs and turnaround times. The assay will detect mutations at informative loci, forming part of an integrated workflow that translates test results into clear clinical decisions. Such a solution would ultimately be provided as either a testing service or by the sale of an analysis ‘kit’ that could be used in-house by existing clinical laboratories. In addition, OGT will use its experience in data interpretation to adapt its powerful CytoSure Interpret Software to analyse the results provided by the new assays, making it simple to generate informative, easy-to-understand reports. James Clough, OGT’s Vice President of Clinical and Genomic Solutions, commented: “OGT has significant experience in utilising its ISO-accredited laboratories to process large numbers of samples and produce reliable results, quickly, accurately and efficiently. The new cancer profiling assay will complement OGT’s other microarray and sequencing solutions, further expanding the analytical options we provide. Such a service facility is novel in the UK and will benefit the patient, clinician and healthcare funder in terms of quality of care and cost-effectiveness.”

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/133153/ogt-to-develop-tumour-profiling-assay-to-facilitate-personalised-cancer-treatment.html