Myriad Genetics to Unveil BRACAnalysis, HRD Data - Analyst Blog

Myriad Genetics, Inc. MYGN recently announced the presentation of vital data supporting the clinical efficacy of its BRACAnalysis CDx and HRD tests, at the ongoing American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting.

The study results support the effectiveness of the aforementioned tests in predicting platinum based therapy response for breast cancer patients. Myriad is also providing an update on important commercial milestones that underline its commitment to the field of companion diagnostics.

This global leader in molecular diagnostic products and gene based medicines is currently working with roughly 20 different pharmaceutical companies on companion diagnostic programs. Notably, Myriad has been investing substantial resources extensively to maintain its global leadership position in the said field.

BRACAnalysis CDx detected that, in a trial set of 86 metastatic breast cancer patients, the response rate to platinum based therapies was 54.5% for patients with deleterious mutations. However, for patients without deleterious mutations, the response rate was only 19.7%.

These data highlighted BRACAnalysis CDx's ability to predict patient response to platinum based therapies in a patient population characterized by low overall response rates.

Per management, several of Myriad's commercial pharmaceutical partners are making remarkable progress in the development of PARP inhibitors toward commercialization in varied cancer types. The company is committed to provide best-in-class diagnostic support to these therapeutic providers.  

In addition, Myriad will also report data investigating the capability of the company's proprietary HRD tumor test to predict response among triple breast negative cancer patients.

The combination of Myriad's three HRD assays including Loss of Heterogyzosity (LOH), Telomere Allelic Imbalance TAI and Large-Scale State Transition (LST) were highly correlated with patient response rates.

The results highlighted the likely effectiveness of HRD as a more comprehensive companion diagnostic for DNA damaging agents. Early research shows that high HRD scores are highly correlated with response rates to DNA damaging agents such as platinum based therapies.

Myriad also declared its plans to conduct a new randomized study involving 160 patients. This study will evaluate HRD as a biomarker for prediction of cisplatin and paclitaxel response in triple negative breast cancer patients at diagnosis. Management at Myriad expects to present this data later in 2014, so that an early access launch of the HRD test in triple negative breast cancer patients is possible by late fiscal 2015.

The company believes with further validation, the HRD test can emerge as the gold standard diagnostic to identify patients who have lost DNA repair function.

Myriad currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Some other well-placed stocks in the biomedical industry are ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ANIP, Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD and Illumina Inc. ILMN. All these stocks carry a similar Zacks Rank #1.
 

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