Just three months ago, Veracyte laid out $600 million to buy Decipher Biosciences and its genomic prostate cancer test. Now, that diagnostic has racked up new data showing it can help identify patients most likely to benefit from specific drugs.
Veracyte picked up urologic cancer specialist Decipher—itself once known as GenomeDx—in March in a cash deal to expand its diagnostic portfolio to seven of the 10 most common tumor types.
Its prostate test is already included in national cancer treatment guidelines, while its kidney and bladder cancer tests are in development, with the latter expected to launch later this year.
The new data—taken from a retrospective analysis of a phase 3 study of men with non-metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer, or nmCRPC, and published in JAMA Oncology—showed the test could use genomic data to judge which patients are most likely to see gains from early treatment with Janssen’s Erleada (apalutamide) alongside androgen-deprivation therapy.
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The study is “the first clinical evaluation and demonstration of the Decipher test’s utility in the nmCRPC setting,” said Veracyte’s senior VP for scientific and clinical operations in urologic cancers, Elai Davicioni, who added that the data helps demonstrate the test’s usefulness in multiple types of prostate cancer.
Previously, the study showed that Erleada combined with ADT could extend overall survival by 14 months and cut the risk of death by 22%. It also showed improvements in metastasis-free survival and other secondary endpoints. Annually, nmCRPC is estimated to affect about 60,000 men in the U.S.
The Decipher diagnostic relies on gene expression profiling to split patients into groups with low, average and high risks of metastasis, as well as by their tumor’s genetic subtype—with those with higher risks seeing the greatest benefits from Erleada therapy.
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The results “suggest that genomic testing provides useful information to guide treatment decisions that may improve outcomes among men with locally advanced disease, a population for which we’ve previously lacked genomic biomarkers,” said the paper’s primary author, Felix Feng, vice chair for translational research in the department of radiation oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.
In addition, the molecular signature can help guide treatment decisions for years after an initial diagnosis, once the cancer has advanced locally, the company said.
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The Decipher genomic classifier is currently being tested in seven randomized phase 3 prostate cancer trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, plus 13 more phase 2/3 trials, as well as more than 20 retrospective studies of phase 3 data, according to Veracyte.