EFN

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has announced a partnership with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to create a revolutionary new blood test that can detect even a single cancer cell in a blood sample. The test for stray cancer cells could turn out to be an easy, painless and more efficient alternative to mammograms, colonoscopies and biopsies.

The five-year partnership, approximately $30 million deal is targeted at refining and commercializing a next-generation test that could allow physicians to better target cancer-treatment regimens and monitor patients’ response to drugs.

The test would serve as a “liquid biopsy” to find circulating cancer cells or CTCs, and would make it easier for doctors to select treatments for cancer patients and then to monitor how well those treatments are working. Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are cancer cells that have detached from the tumor and are found at extremely low levels in the bloodstream, which could mean the cancer has spread further.

The experimental test looks for stray cancer cells in the blood, which are cancer cells that have detached from a tumor and mean that a cancer has either spread, or is likely to. Left unchecked, these circulating cancer cells can grow into new tumors.

Johnson & Johnson will start a research center at Mass General and will have rights to license the test from the hospital, which holds the patents.