Foundation Medicine Publishes New Data in Nature Medicine Supporting Blood Tumor Mutational Burden (bTMB) as a Novel Predictor of Response to Cancer Immunotherapy
-- New publication details Foundation Medicine’s assay’s ability to measure bTMB and to identify patients who may benefit from anti-PD-L1 therapy --
“A significant proportion of patients with advanced lung cancer do not have adequate tissue for traditional biomarker testing. These study results represent an important advance for the liquid biopsy field and suggest that measuring TMB in the blood with our novel assay can help identify patients more likely to benefit from anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy,” said
In the study, clinical data for the novel bTMB assay was reported from a retrospective analysis of more than 1,000 samples from patients with previously treated, advanced NSCLC who participated in Genentech’s Phase II POPLAR and Phase III OAK clinical trials. The study used samples from the POPLAR trial to identify a range of bTMB thresholds that correlated with clinically meaningful outcomes, which were then confirmed using samples from the OAK study. Within the OAK study, patients with bTMB ≥ 16 total mutations (14 mut/Mb) showed significantly improved progression-free survival when treated with atezolizumab as compared to those patients with bTMB ≥ 16 total mutations (14 mut/Mb) treated with docetaxel chemotherapy (Hazard Ratio=0.65 [95% CI: 0.47, 0.92]; p=0.013). According to the study’s first author,
This bTMB assay is being prospectively evaluated in two Genentech studies: in the Phase III Blood First Assay Screening Trial (BFAST) as a companion diagnostic assay to validate bTMB as a non-invasive biomarker of response to first-line atezolizumab in advanced NSCLC patients, and in the single arm Phase II Blood First-Line Ready Screening Trial (B-F1RST) evaluating atezolizumab monotherapy in first-line NSCLC.
In
About Foundation Medicine
Foundation Medicine is a molecular information company dedicated to a transformation in cancer care in which treatment is informed by a deep understanding of the genomic changes that contribute to each patient's unique cancer. The company offers a full suite of comprehensive genomic profiling assays to identify the molecular alterations in a patient's cancer and match them with relevant targeted therapies, immunotherapies and clinical trials. Foundation Medicine’s molecular information platform aims to improve day-to-day care for patients by serving the needs of clinicians, academic researchers and drug developers to help advance the science of molecular medicine in cancer. For more information, please visit http://www.FoundationMedicine.com or follow Foundation Medicine on Twitter (@FoundationATCG).
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements for Foundation Medicine
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the ability of tissue and blood based TMB to predict response to immunotherapy, including the anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy, atezolizumab; the validation of bTMB as a biomarker in first-line immunotherapy; the benefits of Foundation Medicine’s bTMB assay in the treatment of patients with advanced NSCLC; the development of a bTMB assay as a companion diagnostic assay; the continuation of the
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TECENTRIQ® (atezolizumab) is a registered trademark of Genentech, a member of the
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Source: Foundation Medicine
Foundation Medicine
Lee-Ann Murphy, 617-245-3077
pr@foundationmedicine.com