There is hope for cancer patients who receive comprehensive genomic profiling testing (CGP), according to data presented by Illumina at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Annual Meeting over the weekend.

An abstract presented by the San Diego-based biotech concluded that CGP-guided precision therapy use is associated with “significantly higher survival in a reflex testing population.”

Kevin Keegan, general manager of oncology at Illumina, said people have been using genetic tests for cancer for years, but noted there are many care guideline-recommended biomarkers or mutational signatures that must be accounted for.

Keegan said the data indicates that standard-of-care testing for cancer patients is insufficient, that patients eligible for biomarker testing are not receiving it and that CGP can fill in the gaps. He added that the findings are “overwhelming” in support of targeted therapy utilization for advanced cancer patients compared to standard chemotherapy, radiation or surgery.

“In these targeted approaches that are precise in a precision medicine armamentarium, the drugs are the actual things that improve outcomes. But if you don’t use the test, you don’t have access to the actionable markers that will drive those therapies,” he said. “That’s the connection to the improvement in outcomes. If you get more patients in front of the actionable variant that can drive the therapy, which improves outcomes, then we know that we’re going to have an overall improved outcome on a population basis.”

Six years since Illumina launched its CGP testing, provider organizations like Providence or Allegheny Health Network, a 14-hospital academic medical system, have utilized the technology to conduct large-scale genomic profiling across a variety of cancers.

Allegheny and Illumina collaborated on a study presented at the conference that found a high correlation between plasma circulating tumor DNA assays with values obtained from solid tumor CGP assay.

In addition to the data presentations at the conference, Illumina also debuted the Comprehensive Genomic Protector, an educational game for healthcare professionals to practice connecting variants with targeting drugs.

Keegan said the Comprehensive Genomic Protector was inspired by the ongoing gamification trends in healthcare and will serve as an interactive tool to train providers.  

“This whole idea is just meant to be fun, but also work as an educational and awareness builder for oncologists,” he said.