Genetic testing is becoming standard at cancer hospitals in order to advance drug trials and treatment. In the latest example, Quest Diagnostics and Sloan Kettering are partnering to screen patients, aiming to test for 341 genes in 2015. Although the test will cost $4,000, patients will not pay the full amount. Sloan Kettering intends to sequence the tumors of 10,000 patients annually and use the results to group patients for drug trials based on the type of tumor mutation, rather than the type of cancer. The hospital has already completed 15 so-called “basket trials.” Pharmaceutical companies also are utilizing such an approach for drug trials. In the UK, Pfizer and AstraZeneca are testing 14 drugs on 200 lung cancer patients based on the results of tumor sequencing. Amgen uses biomarkers in all of its clinical trials. The FDA is supporting the use of biomarkers for cancer clinical trials. However, the field is still young as little is known about tumor mutations and the various mutations that make up one cancer type.

Source: Bloomberg