Apis Assay Technologies, a UK company specialising in molecular diagnostics, is launching a new advanced subtyping kit for breast cancer, a huge step forward for precision medicine and personalised healthcare.
This innovative assay addresses a number of unmet needs in current practice, including providing highly reproducible results, particularly for low HER2 expression. This is a welcomed development, particularly in the light of recent studies that have shown low HER2 patients are responsive to new HER2 targeting therapy, such as the antibody-drug conjugates that target the cancer cells, e.g. trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu).
The advanced technology of the Apis Breast Cancer Subtyping Kit provides higher accuracy of the Ki67 proliferation measurement, and significantly reduced time to result. It will be accompanied by validated software that enables automatic result interpretation.
Dr Ian Kavanagh, COO and Co-founder of Apis Assay Technologies, said: “We are very excited to launch our new breast cancer subtyping kit, particularly since we are seeing links between the RNA expression and the stratification of HER2 expressing patients compared to classical methods like IHC. We are now able to provide a kit that delivers fast, accurate and reproducible results for the standard breast cancer biomarkers, including a faster HER2 result turnaround without the need for reflex testing when the IHC result is unclear.”
Apis Assay Technologies uses the power of systems biology and big data to develop diagnostics tests that help direct clinicians to the right treatment faster and with higher precision, improving patient outcomes.
The new Breast Cancer Subtyping Kit is an RNA-based diagnostic workflow for detecting mRNA expression of standard biomarkers (ER, PR, HER2, Ki67) and novel proliferative biomarkers from pre-operative core-needle biopsy (CNB) or resected formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) breast tumour tissue and is available now.
Ian Kavanagh added: “Our strategy at Apis Assay is centered around developing technology for the reproducible detection of important cancer cell surface markers based on RNA expression, and in developing a suite of assays for supporting the stratification of novel Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).”
Ian will be attending the 12th World Clinical Biomarkers & CDx Summit in Boston, USA on 28 September 2022 where he will be speaking about the ‘Development of a Novel Breast Cancer Subtyping and Proliferation Gene Expression Diagnostic Test’.
To find out more about Apis Assay Technologies, please visit https://www.apisassay.com/.
