Dive Brief:
- Ilumina’s next-generation sequencing (NGS) systems will be used in clinical trials of targeted cancer therapies in order to create a multi-gene panel for therapeutic selection. AstraZeneca, Sanofi, and Johnson & Johnson all plant to use the NGS platform to better understand the individualized genomics of study subjects.
- NGS allows for rapid sequencing of multiple genes in a more cost-effective way than traditional DNA sequencing.
- The ultimate goal of NGS is to understand the molecular makeup of cancerous tumors and find a therapy to combat it.
Dive Insight:
There are not a whole lot of targeted oncology therapeutics available on the market -- but there are around 800 oncology drugs in development, including many that are targeted towards specific mutations.
There are currently 125 known cancer driver genes, including 71 tumor suppressors and 54 oncogenes that drive tumor growth through 12 separate cellular signaling pathways. Illumina's deals with major cancer drug makers is a major step forward for personalized medicine.