Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

FMI— I believe getting a blood sample is usually a lot less invasive than a tumour biopsy; that sensitivity to the DNA fragment or mRNA or whatever will make this the diagnostic tool of choice. However, you're probably right that it will be a very long time before the blood test approach becomes an effective, all inclusive means of detecting all types of cancer and the most appropriate tx.

There’s clearly a tradeoff here between convenience and efficacy. If sourcing from blood tests were almost as good as sourcing from biopsies, the blood tests would win commercially. But, again, I don’t see this happening for a long time (if ever).

A parallel of sorts is the superiority of EXAS’ stool-based Cologuard diagnostic for CRC (#msg-99162155) relative to Epigenomics’ blood-based assay (#msg-102836984). Most people would probably rather get a blood test than collect and package a stool sample, but the two tests, as currently configured, are not in the same league.