Roche’s Foundation Medicine has linked with Fulgent Genetics to offer a new diagnostic test that identifies a person’s genetic makeup, which can determine how they metabolize and process drugs.
Dubbed the FoundationOne PGFx, the diagnostic is a pharmacogenetic diagnostic that can be performed early on in the onset of a disease and allows caregivers to better know what drug therapies will be more effective, and also reduce the risk of adverse drug responses. This becomes even more urgent when a condition advances and the patient may be receiving combinations of drugs, including chemotherapies.
Foundation’s diagnostic will be offered in the U.S. through the partnership with Fulgent and will be available through Foundation’s portal, the company said in a May 4 press release.
Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.
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“FoundationOne PGx is an important addition to our portfolio, helping healthcare providers anticipate potential toxicity of medicines, reduced treatment effectiveness, and increased risk of adverse reactions,” Todd Druley, M.D., Foundation’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. “When combined with our high-quality comprehensive genomic profiling tests, this PGx offering powered by Fulgent can help healthcare providers build a more comprehensive understanding of each patient’s genomic profile to inform treatment decisions throughout their care.”
The PGx oncology-related panel includes genes associated with the metabolism of medicines that have strong clinical evidence and actionable guidelines. Those include: CYP2C19, CYP2C9, CYP2D6, DPYD, G6PD, NUDT15, TPMT, UGT1A1 and UGT1A4. Variants in these genes can influence patient response to chemotherapies, targeted therapies and supportive care medications commonly used in oncology.
The collaboration with Fulgent comes two weeks after the Foundation bolstered its ties with Bristol Myers Squibb to develop its diagnostic tool, FoundationOne CDx, to identify patients with homozygous MTAP deletion. Detecting such a deletion aids in identifying patients for targeted therapies and better matches them with Bristol Myers Squibb’s experimental drug.
