In a further sign of the convergence happening in healthcare technology, genomics company GuardantHealth is teaming with health IT and analytics vendor Flatiron Health to create a new platform to enable personalized cancer care. The two entities will combine genomic data on tumors from GuardantHealth, of Redwood City, Calif., with New York-based Flatiron Health’s OncologyCloud analytics engine. The new platform will pull data from Guardant360, Guardant’s liquid biopsy-based genomic testing and cross-reference it with anonymous clinical treatment and outcomes data in OncologyCloud to help researchers develop new therapies. This yet-unnamed product will be marketed to life sciences companies rather than care providers. The companies said they expect to have it on the market by mid-2016. “Integrating clinical and genomic information has the potential to dramatically improve cancer treatment and advance therapy development,” Flatiron Health CEO Nat Turner said in a joint statement from the two companies. “Flatiron Health and Guardant Health’s collective technology, oncology know-how and genomic expertise will deliver an advanced, cloud-based platform to enhance patient care.” Guardant Health CEO and co-founder Helmy Eltoukhy said that Guardant360 enables real-time access to genomic data through a blood test, without having to wait for tissue samples. “When combined with Flatiron Health’s clinical data, this will significantly accelerate timelines for drug development, enabling many new treatment options for millions of cancer patients,” Eltoukhy said. In this video, Guardant Health said that Guardant360’s “digital sequencing” technology is 1,000 times more accurate than previous DNA sequencing methods.
Genomics company GuardantHealth and health IT and analytics vendor, Flatiron health, are teaming up in developing a platform to enable personalised cancer care. The new partnership will be led by the two companies with support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is also working on its own platform.