2020 AACR | AnchorDx Unveiled A New Generation of Methylation Sequencing Technology, Aurora, towards the Development of A $100 Multi-Cancer Screening Test

FREMONT, Calif., June 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- At the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting II (June 22^nd – 24^th), AnchorDx (Guangzhou, China/Fremont, CA, US) presented a poster unveiling a new generation of ctDNA methylation detection technology, named Aurora, for multi-cancer screening, titled Toward the Development of a $100 Screening Test for Six Major Cancer Types. The AnchorDx Aurora test targets six major cancers, including lung, breast and digestive system cancers (colorectum, stomach, esophagus and liver), which accounts for 65.2% of newly diagnosed cancer incidences and 72.4% of cancer-related deaths in China. This one-tube DNA methylation test provides a very practical and accessible solution for routine clinical applications. In addition, the test offers high sensitivity and specificity, short turn-around time and low cost.

A key advantage of the Aurora test comes from its novel and streamlined target enrichment and sequencing library preparation strategy, resulting in significantly increased sensitivity and specificity of detecting low-abundant ctDNA methylation signals. The reduced number of methylation markers in the test not only saves the cost but also avoids any potential over-fitting of a diagnostic model caused by excessive number of markers. By analyzing more than 2,000 tissue and 4,000 plasma samples of the six major cancer types with a genome-wide DNA methylation profiling approach, together with the data from public databases (e.g., TCGA), AnchorDx discovered an optimal set of DNA methylation markers and developed a diagnostic model for detection of each of the six cancer types. Compared to other DNA methylation profiling technologies reported, the Aurora test demonstrates an extraordinary performance in detection of lung, breast and colorectal cancers with overall accuracy (ROC-AUC) of 97.3%, 96.2% and 92.0% for lung, breast and colorectal cancers, respectively. In the early stage cancers (Stage I), the Aurora test maintains a very high sensitivity, 82.4% for lung cancer, 62.5% for breast cancer and 54.5% for colorectal cancer, at a pre-defined specificity of 99%.

AnchorDx is conducting a validation study of the Aurora test in a large independent cohort of these three cancers and will complete model optimization for the remaining three cancer types (Stomach, esophagus and liver). This novel technology may lead to the development of a clinically feasible, $100 multi-cancer screening test in the near future.

SOURCE AnchorDx, Inc.

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