Biocept Launches Clinical Services Offering

Molecular diagnostics company Biocept now offers clinical trial and drug development support services for targeted therapeutics, the company said Monday.

The service, performed at Biocept’s CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratory, includes blood-based biomarker testing for R&D activities, clinical trial inclusion testing and monitoring of therapeutic response.

The aim is to create a comprehensive biomarker test menu that will benefit community oncologists, academic researchers and pharma companies by allowing them to analyze genomic changes in intact circulating tumor cells and cell-free tumor DNA to detect driver and drug resistance mutations, Biocept said. Among key targets are ALK and ROS1 translocations on CTCs, focusing on non-small cell lung cancer, and HER2 copy number analysis for breast and gastrointestinal cancers.

Biocept’s previous tests, such as the HER2 OncoCEE-BR breast cancer assay, are based on cell enrichment and extraction technology that captures rare cells in a microfluidic device.

Being able to detect metastasized tumor cells in blood can help in detecting relapses and responses to treatment and predicting outcomes, and can sometimes substitute for biopsies, the company said. — Lena Freund

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