Biotechnology company Oxford BioDynamics has introduced its checkpoint inhibitor response test (CiRT) for oncology in the US.
EpiSwitch CiRT is claimed to be the first-of-its-kind clinical blood test, which can predict the possibility of a cancer patient’s response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) such as anti-PD-L1 and anti-PD-1 immunotherapies.
The EpiSwitch qPCR blood test has shown 93% sensitivity, 82% specificity and 85% accuracy across several ICIs of multiple pharmaceutical companies and over 15 major oncological indications, said the company.
The EpiSwitch CiRT helps doctors to make a better decision on the recommendation of beginning or continuing treatment with an ICI.
Oxford BioDynamics has worked with NEXT Molecular Analytics for the clinical validation of EpiSwitch CiRT test in its high complexity CLIA-certified laboratory.
Oxford BioDynamics CEO Dr Jon Burrows said: “Oxford Biodynamics Checkpoint Inhibitor Response Test (EpiSwitch CiRT) is a very important step forward for precision medicine. EpiSwitch CiRT directly links clinical outcome to gene regulation and with high accuracy predicts patient response.
“Since one in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime, it is essential to develop smart testing that can rapidly predict treatment response and guide us to the most efficacious therapies and maximize benefits for patients.”
EpiSwitch is the company’s 3D genomic biomarker platform that can be used to build molecular diagnostic classifiers to predict response to therapy, patient prognosis, disease diagnosis and subtyping, and residual disease monitoring in various indications.
In March last year, the company introduced its first commercial prognostic test called EpiSwitch CST (covid severity test). It also launched a microarray kit known as EpiSwitch Explorer Array Kit for high-resolution 3D genome profiling and biomarker discovery.
