GeneNews Limited (TSX: GEN), an innovator in the liquid biopsy space, today announced a partnership with Pittsburgh-based, LifeX™, a strategic engine for developing and nurturing cutting-edge, life-saving health solutions and bringing these innovations to market.

LifeX™ was founded by CEO, Dietrich Stephan, PhD, a renowned human geneticist and entrepreneur recognized for his early leadership in the field of Precision Medicine. The LifeX™ mission is to deliver new solutions to tackle prevalent and intractable global diseases.

GeneNews, which provides innovative solutions for early cancer detection, will work together with LifeX™to develop strategies for incorporating several proprietary, early cancer diagnostics into healthcare settings to improve patient compliance with cancer screening, as well as to bridge the diagnostic gaps in current screening procedures.

Early detection of cancer is known to improve outcomes. Few, if any, technologies can detect tumors at an early stage, hampering the ability to have a transformational population-wide impact driven by broad-based screening. GeneNews has several tests that have been developed and tested in many thousands of patients and proven to detect cancer at an early stage using a simple blood test, termed a “liquid biopsy.“

“Most of today’s research initiatives are focused on developing treatment for late-stage cancers versus finding it in the early stages, when it is most curable and survival rates are highest,” says GeneNews’ CEO, James R Howard-Tripp. “To really make a difference in improving and saving lives, our solutions start at the beginning of disease not at the end.”

“We look forward to bringing GeneNews’ solutions to the marketplace to make a tangible difference in global health by enabling cures when cancer is most treatable,”says Dr. Stephan. “Other liquid biopsy companies are focused on monitoring response to chemotherapy or detecting recurrence of tumors after initial treatment. GeneNews, one of the pioneers of the liquid biopsy, has developed the ‘holy-grail’ – a suite of tests that have the correct sensitivity and specificity to detect cancer early and perform correctly as a screening tool at the population level.”

These tests are part of a platform, known as Aristotle™, which is based on GeneNew’s proprietary mRNA Sentinel Principle technology that can generate highly discriminative multi-gene panels for many diseases. GeneNews is currently working on a panel for the simultaneous monitoring of ten cancers from a single blood sample.

Thomas Stewart, President & CEO of JTS Health Partners was instrumental in bringing this collaboration together. “In my capacity as strategic advisor to this partnership, I’m excited about the collaboration’s impact and the opportunity to remain actively engaged in the growth and success of the venture.   LifeX™, GeneNews and JTS Health Partners bring unique synergies that are patient oriented and client centric.  The innovative capabilities of our collective organizations will advance value and quality-based reimbursement models that drive enterprise cost reduction for health systems and large employers through early cancer intervention.”

About GeneNews

GeneNews, an innovator in the liquid biopsy space, is committed to becoming a leader in advanced diagnostics and personalized medicine, serving as a strong commercialization outlet for early detection of cancer and other chronic diseases. Our mission is to identify, assess and make commercially available a comprehensive menu of diagnostics that provide physicians and patients with personalized clinical intelligence and actionable information to improve health outcomes through the early diagnosis of disease.

Our Richmond, Virginia-based Innovative Diagnostic Laboratory clinical reference lab specializes in traditional and advanced clinical evidence-based blood testing that helps find, understand, and address cancer risk in patient populations. Currently, IDL offers risk assessment blood tests for four prevalent cancer types – colon, lung, prostate and breast. GeneNews’ common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘GEN’. 

About LifeX™

LifeX™ develops first-in-class solutions to alleviate suffering and death from horrific, prevalent and intractable diseases.  The LifeX™ team partners with innovator-entrepreneurs to unlock the potential of their technologies and deliver them to patients and their physicians across the globe. LifeX™ was founded by Dr. Dietrich Stephan, with founding support from the University of Pittsburgh and the Henry L. Hillman Foundations. https://www.lifexventures.com

JTS Health Partners

Formed in 2002 as a technology professional services company, JTS has evolved to become a leading healthcare management consulting and professional services firm dedicated to meeting the needs of the nation’s many top healthcare organizations in both the private and public sector. JTS’s healthcare management consulting and services portfolio is focused on enterprise advisory planning, health information management, information technology, financial and revenue cycle management. The company also works on operational performance improvement initiatives for hospitals and physicians, inclusive of data analytics, and offers other professional services that include staff augmentation for the acute and physician settings.