Barcelona-based testing service will advance cancer research and enable clinicians to personalize treatments more accurately and quickly for patients with late-stage cancer
PALO ALTO, Calif. & BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Guardant Health, Inc. (Nasdaq: GH), a leading precision oncology company, and the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), one of Europe’s leading cancer research organizations, today announced that the first blood-based cancer testing services in Europe based on Guardant Health’s industry-leading digital sequencing platform are now available at the VHIO liquid biopsy testing facility in Barcelona.
Guardant Health and VHIO established the partnership in January 2021 to give more patients access to Guardant Health’s industry leading liquid biopsy technology. This testing service will provide essential genomic information through comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) for patients with any solid cancerous tumor. From a simple blood draw, the test identifies patients with actionable biomarkers more quickly than starting with tissue biopsy. The VHIO testing services will be available for clinical research and clinical care.
“The opening of this service will give more patients with advanced cancer access to blood-based biomarker testing and help their healthcare professionals make more informed treatment decisions,” said Helmy Eltoukhy, Guardant Health co-CEO. “We look forward to continuing to build our partnership with VHIO, working together to ensure cancer patients across Spain and beyond have access to the latest innovations in precision oncology and striving to achieve better patient outcomes.”
“The incorporation of this technology in VHIO will enable us to continue advancing towards precision medicine, improving the use of liquid biopsy to detect genomic alterations in tumors and come out with more effective treatments for patients,” said Dr Josep Tabernero, Director of VHIO and Head of the Medical Oncology Department of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. “Our goal is to ensure that the use of liquid biopsy becomes a common diagnostic option, so that oncologists can use it to determine the best treatment for their patients. Thanks to this agreement, we can move towards this scenario.”
“Implementing this technology in our lab is a leap forward in the liquid field for us. We have performed an in-house extensive analytical validation of the assay and we attain very high levels of sensitivity and specificity with the test,” said Dr Ana Vivancos, Group Leader of the VHIO Cancer Genomics Group, where this testing will take place. “Guardant Health’s next generation broad panel sequencing technology gives us the capabilities to screen for a large number of gene mutations and provides complete genomic results without the need for a tissue sample.”
In 2020, there were over 282,000 new cancer cases in Spain and approximately 113,000 cancer deaths, with lung cancer and colon cancer being the leading causes of cancer-related death.1 Guardant Health’s tests are used by oncologists around the world to guide treatment decisions across solid tumor cancers, and by pharmaceutical companies and academic researchers in clinical trials to accelerate precision medicine drug development.
About Guardant Health
Guardant Health is a leading precision oncology company focused on helping conquer cancer globally through use of its proprietary tests, vast data sets and advanced analytics. The Guardant Health oncology platform leverages capabilities to drive commercial adoption, improve patient clinical outcomes and lower healthcare costs across all stages of the cancer care continuum. Guardant Health has commercially launched Guardant360®, Guardant360 CDx, Guardant360 TissueNext™, Guardant360 Response™, and GuardantOMNI® tests for advanced stage cancer patients, and Guardant Reveal™ for early-stage cancer patients. The Guardant Health screening portfolio, including the Shield™ test, aims to address the needs of individuals eligible for cancer screening.
About Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology
Established in 2006, the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) is a leading comprehensive cancer research center of excellence where its scientists and research physicians adopt a purely translational research model, working together as multidisciplinary teams to both accelerate and advance personalized and targeted therapies against cancer. Undertaking one of Spain’s most dynamic cancer research programs, VHIO is dedicated to delivering on the promise of precision medicine in oncology – turning cancer discovery into more effective treatments and better practice for the care of our patients. VHIO is one of the seven leading European cancer research centers that have joined forces to create Cancer Core Europe, a Cancer Association carrying out innovative research propelling cancer medicine into a new era through translational research.
Guardant Health Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, including statements regarding the potential utilities, values, benefits and advantages of Guardant Health’s liquid biopsy tests or assays, which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results and expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and actual outcomes and results could differ materially from these statements due to a number of factors. These and additional risks and uncertainties that could affect Guardant Health’s financial and operating results and cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release include those discussed under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation” and elsewhere in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and in its other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to Guardant Health as of the date hereof, and Guardant Health disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements provided to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Guardant Health’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
References
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International Agency for Research on Cancer. World Health Organization. https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/populations/724-spain-fact-sheets.pdf. Accessed online May 18, 2022.
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Guardant Health Contacts
Investor Contact:
Alex Kleban
investors@guardanthealth.com
+1 657-254-5417
Media Contact:
Michele Rest
press@guardanthealth.com
+1 215-910-2138
Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology Contact
Media Contact:
Bianca Pont
bpont@vhio.net
Source: Guardant Health, Inc.