Throughout the rollout of its Cologuard test for colorectal cancer, executives at Exact Sciences openly talked about other cancer screening tests in the company’s product pipeline, and now they have more evidence of their accuracy.
In advance of this week’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, where investors and scientists will gather, Exact Sciences says a blood test to identify early cases of lung cancer is showing a high level of accuracy — 98.5% — in a study of patients with lung nodules, according to a report in the Wisconsin State Journal. Other cancer diagnostic tests show promise, as well.
In addition to Cologuard, the company has been developing cancer-screening products for pancreatic, esophageal, and lung cancer. Its work to identify proprietary methylation markers for at least seven major cancers has been done in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic. With the process of methylation, specific genes can be turned on or off.
Exact Sciences confirmed Monday that high levels of detection accuracy also have been reported in blood tests for liver cancer and in biopsies of the fluid of pancreatic cysts.
Exact Sciences first had to demonstrate success with Cologuard, which was used by 244,000 Americans last year, in order to address other forms of cancer. CEO Kevin Conroy says the company is in the process of demonstrating that its technology platform not only works with stool samples in the case of Cologuard but also in tissue and blood samples.
The company, which employs more than 800 people nationwide, reported preliminary revenues of between $99 million and $99.5 million in 2016. If confirmed in subsequent financial reporting, that would represent a 150% increase over the previous year.
