

Promising results with high-precision treatments
In 2010, patients with incurable chronic lymphocytic leukemia were successfully treated for the first time. In two of these three patients, the tumor completely regressed within four weeks. The first patient received therapy in 2012 and is still cancer-free today. In 2017, the first therapies with CAR T-cells, Kymriah and Yescarta, were approved for use in the U.S., one of which subsequently also received EU approval.
QIAGEN, with Bristol-Myers Squibb, is exploring the use of NGS technology to create gene expression profiles (GEPs) as predictive or prognostic tools for novel I-O therapies. A potential outcome could be the first-ever NGS-based companion or complementary diagnostic to provide key insights for personalized decision-making in I-O. Fouad Namouni, M.D., Head of Oncology Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb has stated that “working with QIAGEN will help develop better diagnostic tools to target the most appropriate immunotherapies across a number of different tumor types.”
October 2019