Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

EXAS reports early liquid-biopsy data in pancreatic cancer:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/exact-sciences-advances-pipeline-capabilities-with-mayo-clinic-300853108.html

Lead author and Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist Shounak Majumder, M.D. presented results from the 340-sample, case-control study. A panel of methylated DNA markers in plasma in combination with CA 19-9, achieved a cross-validated sensitivity of 79% in Stage 1, 82% in Stage 2, 94% in Stage 3 and 99% in Stage 4 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) with 92% specificity (81-100%). This combination was significantly better than CA 19-9 alone.

…Statistical modeling was used to identify the best algorithm to predict disease status in this sample set. Subsequently, the panel was cross validated by randomly splitting the entire data set into training and testing sets. The fitted model from the training set was used to predict disease status in the test set over multiple iterations. This study used a small number of archival patient blood samples, which could lead to over-fitting to this particular sample set and cause subsequent sensitivity and specificity to decline in a larger, prospective population.

A prospective validation study is currently underway at Mayo Clinic.

EXAS is the manufacturer and vendor of Cologuard, which was developed in conjunction with Mayo.