J&J Seeks to Market New Cancer Screening Device
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is teaming up with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital to market a microchip-based test that could detect cancer cells in blood, a potentially revolutionary initiative for cancer patients.
The deal is reportedly worth about $30 million, depending on certain benchmarks, according to reports by the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press.
The device can detect a single stray cell among billions of healthy ones, a previously impossible feat for doctors. Veridex, one of the collaborating partners, said the device's next-generation circulating tumor cell (CTC) technology captures, counts and characterizes rare cells found in patients' blood.
The device may prove beneficial for doctors in monitoring and guiding cancer, surpassing other traditional cancer screening methods such as needle biopsies and CT scans, enabling doctors to detect the disease sooner and personalize treatment for patients.
"This new technology has the potential to facilitate an easy-to-administer, non-invasive blood test that would allow us to count tumor cells, and to characterize the biology of the cells," said Robert McCormack, head of technology innovation and strategy at Veridex, the only diagnostics company to have brought CTC technology to the U.S. market.
The platform being developed is a bench-top system that specifically isolates and explores the biology of rare cells at the protein, RNA and DNA level, the companies said in a statement.
In 2004, Veridex launched the first commercial CTC test, cleared by the FDA for capturing and counting the number of tumor cells in the blood to help inform patients and doctors about prognosis and overall survival in certain types of metastatic cancers.
J&J makes the only other test currently on the market that identifies tumor cells in the blood. That device, though, called CellSearch, only provides a cell count.
