Ahead of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, kicking off this weekend, Illumina has announced a new molecular residual disease (MRD) product. The distributed kit enables solid tumor MRD and blood cancer genomic profiling and, the company says, will enable more labs to adopt MRD detection for clinical research. It is the first in a new portfolio of WGS oncology research offerings, with additional solutions in development leveraging the latest advancements of the NovaSeq X. Illumina’s MRD research solution is available today for early access to select partners and will launch for global customers next year. “In precision healthcare, early and accurate detection of molecular residual disease is critical to monitoring patients during and after cancer treatment,” said Todd Christian, senior vice president of Services, Arrays, and Genomic Access at Illumina. “Illumina’s MRD solution for clinical research leverages the advanced sensitivity of whole-genome sequencing, coupled with unparalleled analysis, to enable our customers to more easily deliver the most precise information to advance MRD research. We aim to make WGS in oncology more accessible and scalable to support the integration of precision solutions into the standard of care.” The MRD solution supports fingerprinting through solid tumor samples, and MRD detection using blood samples, all compatible on NovaSeq Systems. The end-to-end research workflow can be completed in as fast as five days and is optimized for analytical sensitivity as low as 10 ppm, particularly important for early-stage and low-shedding tumors, including breast, ovarian, and renal. Illumina’s DRAGEN…
