Biodesix Advances the Field of Personalized Medicine With the Launch of Ve...( Test will help oncologists guide trea...),Health

Test will help oncologists guide treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer

BROOMFIELD, Colo., May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Biodesix, Inc. today announces U.S. commercial availability of VeriStrat, a unique, blood-based, proteomic test for patients with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). VeriStrat identifies patients who are likely to have good or poor outcomes following treatment with epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs), such as erlotinib. VeriStrat, in addition to other clinical factors, provides information to help oncologists make more informed decisions regarding treatment selection.

VeriStrat utilizes mass spectrometry paired with Biodesix' proprietary algorithms to determine a patient's VeriStrat classification: VeriStrat Good or VeriStrat Poor. The results of a 460 patient, multi-national clinical study indicate that patients identified as VeriStrat Poor have a higher rate of death as compared to patients identified as VeriStrat Good after treatment with EGFR-TKIs (J Natl Cancer Inst. 2007;99(11):838-46). The study also shows that VeriStrat identifies candidates for therapy who may otherwise be excluded based on patient characteristics, such as a history of smoking or tumor tissue histology.

"Clinically, there are two key advantages of using the VeriStrat test," said Paul Bunn, Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado Denver and Executive Director of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. "First, this test can help to identify patients who are unlikely to benefit from therapy. EGFR-TKIs are effective for some NSCLC patients, but not all. Oncologists currently rely on patient characteristics, such as smoking history or tissue histology, which offer limited value in determining whether or not a patient will benefit from a specific therapy. Second, this test offers us a noninvasive mean
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