Cancer, the "Emperor of All Maladies" as it has been termed, has been studied for millennia. President Nixon's "War on Cancer" resulted in slow but steady progress, aided by the biotechnology revolution, the development of...more
Genetic instability has long been recognized as a hallmark of oncogenesis and tumor progression. The phenomenon was first identified cytogenetically, most famously by the Philadelphia chromosome in chronic myelogenous...more
The Big Cost; Cancer is the Answer; and SDOH Evolves - The Big Cost: You’re okay today, and then tomorrow you’re not. Life has changed and there’s a new reality. Whether it’s an acute event – an accident, a heart attack, a...more
The Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) released its annual “Personalized Medicine At FDA: A Progress & Outlook Report” (Report) that monitors current successes and challenges in bringing personalized therapies to market....more
Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) decided to provide nationwide reimbursement for certain in vitro, companion diagnostic tests that employ Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for patients with advanced...more
A controversial new Medicare national coverage determination (“Medicare NCD”) for certain next-generation sequencing (“NGS”) tests published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) on March 16, 2018, could...more
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for treatment of patients whose cancers have a specific genetic feature (biomarker). The FDA has traditionally approved cancer treatments...more
Advances in DNA sequencing technology and the interpretation of the acquired data have fueled advances in genomics and its application in the delivery of personalized healthcare. Illumina recently announced a new milestone...more
Last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 8,628,920, which is entitled "Method for early diagnosis of liver cancer and prediction of metastasis." The '920 patent, which is assigned to National...more