Technology Overview

Genetics testing or molecular diagnostics (MDx) is a technique used to analyze biological markers for medical testing. MDx is a form of revolutionizing medical care, especially in the field of cancer medicine. MDx provides information on the prognosis of cancer and recommends the most appropriate treatment for patients. This can substantially reduce healthcare costs by pinpointing the right treatments that are effective for patients while avoiding therapies that patients do not necessarily respond to.

The technology provider has developed a simple molecular diagnostic kit which gathers molecular data for best cancer management. The kit will allow the identification of patients with hereditary cancers and recommendation of appropriate drugs for treatment. The kit presents advantages of its utility with low sample quantity requisites, and its portability since using the MDx kit does not require expensive machines and involves minimal infrastructure.

The technology provider is looking for partnership opportunities to work towards their vision and mission for developing low-cost molecular diagnostics for cancer and other diseases.

Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages

The technology’s focus is to develop low-cost molecular diagnostics technology to guide cancer care in resource-limited countries. In western countries, the trend is towards gathering data using of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for cancer diagnostics. However, this is not feasible in developing countries given the high technology costs, requisite for infrastructure and skills, geographical constraints in the rural areas, collectively hinder the implementation of NGS.

As such, the technology provider has developed molecular diagnostic kits to test small panels of genes to provide clinically actionable information to guide disease treatment. The method is based on High Resolution Melting (HRM) technology. HRM protocols and data analyses are simple and can be performed by trained laboratory technicians. HRM is used in many laboratories across the world in both animal and plant sciences. It is a very robust platform which will work on DNA from any source and only requires standard PCR machines. Thus, the method can be applied as point of care (POC) services anywhere in developing countries including rural areas. Minimal adjustment of the methodology will be required for the implementation in other Asian countries that may have similar genetic and socio-economic background.

In addition, the technology provider is also developing an AI-driven Digital Pathology platform, in hope to enable faster disease diagnosis, biomarker analysis, and resource sharing for both clinical and educational settings.

Potential Applications

The recent paradigm shift toward precision medicine drives more utilization of molecular diagnostics (MDx) platforms in healthcare. Asia pacific currently is the fastest growing for MDx market in the world.

The technology is currently focusing on low-cost molecular diagnostics of cancer into clinical implementation for better cancer management.

Customer Benefit

The technology can bring the following benefits:

• Improvement to current management of cancer treatments
• Targeted personalized therapy to reduce patient’s treatment regime and therapy period, thereby allowing faster recovery
• Prevent unnecessarily healthcare costs by avoiding therapies that patients are not responsive to