DxS Partners with Exosome to Develop Companion Diagnostics for Cancer Therapies

Exosome Diagnostics and DxS are combining their technologies to develop new blood-based companion diagnostics for predicting a patient’s response to targeted anticancer therapies.

The partnership, initially focused on developing tests for cancer gene mutations including KRAS, BRAF, and EGR, will combine DxS’ Scorpions® real-time PCR Mutation Test Kits with ExosomeDx’ xOS™ technology for obtaining nucleic acids from exosomes in blood. The companies claim that blood-based mutation testing will be particularly valuable for diseases with limited tissue bioavailability such as lung, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers.

Stephen Little, Ph.D., DxS’ CEO, said that combining the Scorpions assay with the ability to obtain high-quality mutations from a simple blood test represents “an ideal solution in personalized medicine.”

“There are over 180 companies investigating 370 different molecular targeted cancer therapies, many of which will require high-quality, molecular companion diagnostics,” added James McCullough, ExosomeDx’s CEO. “Teaming with the world leader in this space is a critical step in providing a solution for pharmaceutical companies, researchers and clinicians to measure the key mutations DxS Scorion probes target directly from blood.”

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