Epic Sciences Launches Metastatic Breast Cancer Circulating Tumor Cell Panel

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Epic Sciences, Inc. announces the release of its breast cancer single-cell profiling panel. The Epic breast cancer panel is the most comprehensive breast cancer biomarker panel available for characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) within a blood sample. 

Multiple biopharma and academic institutes are actively utilizing the panel as a clinical research tool to analyze the impact of dozens of novel and standard of care therapies in context to biochemical drivers of disease progression.

"The biochemical complexity and inherent tumor heterogeneity of metastatic breast cancer requires more comprehensive and precise analysis than what has been thus far available to cancer researchers," said Mark Landers, vice president of translational research at Epic Sciences. "The ability to characterize the active metastatic portion of a patient's tumor burden from a liquid biopsy with single cell resolution in the context of tumor heterogeneity is a major advancement in understanding breast cancer disease progression and will significantly aid the development of novel therapeutics."

In addition to measuring changes in circulating tumor burden, the panel assays clinically relevant hormone receptor status, genomic drivers, and novel morphologic signatures for homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) and heterogeneity on every CTC individually.  These biomarkers cover a large portion of therapeutic classes currently employed in clinical trials. The panel design enables flexibility of analysis based upon the needs of the clinical research being employed. 

"Utilizing the Epic breast cancer panel, we have uncovered sub-clonal drivers of disease progression not found through tissue or ctDNA analysis," said Landers. "These insights are already enabling investigators to improve clinical trial design and find novel therapeutic strategies for patients with metastatic breast cancer."

About Epic Sciences 

Epic Sciences, Inc. is developing novel diagnostics to personalize and advance the treatment and management of cancer. Epic Sciences' mission is to enable the rapid and non-invasive detection of genetic and molecular changes in cancer throughout a patient's journey. The company was founded on a powerful platform to identify and characterize rare cells, including circulating tumor cells. Epic Sciences No Cell Left Behind® technology helps match patients to therapies and monitor for drug resistance, so that the best treatment path can be chosen at every clinical decision point. Epic Sciences has partnered with Genomic Health to commercialize the Oncotype DX® AR-V7 Nucleus DetectTM test, which helps with therapeutic decisions between taxane chemotherapy and androgen-directed therapeutics in metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. Today, we partner with leading pharmaceutical companies and major cancer centers around the world. Epic Sciences' goal is to increase the success rate of cancer drugs in clinical trials and improve patient outcomes by providing physicians real-time information to guide treatment choices. Epic Sciences is headquartered in San Diego.