AstraZeneca and Yandex will create a platform for cancer diagnosis
The service can be used in molecular genetic diagnostics laboratories and cancer dispensaries. The platform is designed to help in the diagnosis of breast, ovarian, lung, stomach, prostate and pancreatic cancer.
The platform will generate a report for molecular biologists and clinical geneticists on mutations found in the patient's genome, provide information about their possible effects and available treatment recommendations. That is, the service will help specialists interpret the results of analyses and simplify access to reference information.
RAY will be launched in December 2015 in the pilot operation format. It is expected that at the initial stage 3-5 thousand studies a year will pass through it, then the indicator will increase to 10 thousand a year, and by 2020 it is planned to perform 46 thousand tests annually. The volume of investments in the project is not disclosed by its participants.
The incidence of malignant neoplasms in the world is growing – about 14 million new cases of cancer are detected annually. By 2030, this figure may increase to 17 million. New personalized approaches in therapy can improve the prognosis of patients, and in combination with immunotherapeutic drugs in the future, they can potentially transfer some oncological diseases to the category of chronic. Discoveries in genetics made it possible to identify the molecular mechanisms of the development of malignant tumors, which made it necessary to conduct molecular genetic testing to identify them and choose the right therapy. "Molecular genetic diagnostics, which is critically important for the appointment of adequate treatment of genetically dependent malignant neoplasms, has not yet been included in existing standards. I hope that the creation of a Russian service for molecular genetic testing and interpretation of its results will optimize the implementation of modern drug therapy for our patients," said Sergey Tyulyandin, Chairman of RUSSCO, Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Research Institute of Clinical Oncology of the N.N. Blokhin Russian Research Center.
The RAY service will allow assessing the clinical and predictive significance of mutations identified as a result of sequencing, which determines their interaction with drugs.
To select the right targeted therapy, pharmaceutical companies create special tests. "It is important not only to determine whether there is a mutation in the body or not, it is important to understand how significant this mutation is in terms of increasing cancer risk. In particular, in order to make the interpretation more technological and accurate, this platform is being created," explained Vademecum in AstraZeneca. The company notes that there are similar projects in the world. RAY differs in that it will take into account mutations specific to the Russian patient population.
"This will be possible thanks to the data of the OVATAR experimental study. In addition, the project will be available from a financial point of view," AstraZeneca added.
The technical platform for RAY is developed on the basis of Yandex technologies, using infrastructure for high loads. The company assures that with an increase in the number of tasks for processing sequencing results, an unlimited number of machines can be added, and the operation of the system is guaranteed even in situations when individual equipment fails. All calculations are carried out in Yandex's own data centers.
"Cooperation with AstraZeneca is the first time when Yandex technologies can be used for the benefit of medicine and pharmaceuticals. This is an experiment for us, and we would really like its results to be useful," said Evgenia Zavalishina, head of Yandex Data Factory.
Data on newly investigated mutations will be added to the platform over time, expanding the completeness of reports.
OVATAR is an observational study aimed at studying the most common approaches to the treatment of 1st–line Russian patients with newly diagnosed serous and/or endometrioid ovarian cancer, fallopian tube and peritoneal cancer in Russia. An additional objective of the study is to study the prevalence of BRCA1/2 gene mutations in patients with this diagnosis. It is assumed that 500 patients across Russia will be included in the study, and its completion is scheduled for 2017 with an interim analysis of the results in mid-2016.
Yandex Data Factory is the international direction of Yandex for solving business problems of companies that deal with large amounts of data. Yandex technologies – machine learning, image and speech recognition, deep neural networks, natural language processing – allow you to analyze this data and get a solution to the task.
RUSSCO is the Russian Society of Clinical Oncology. Unites the efforts of oncologists and specialists in related industries (radiologists, pathologists, pharmacists, specialists in diagnostic services, researchers in the field of studying the biological properties of neoplasms, and so on) to improve the prevention and treatment of malignant tumors.
AstraZeneca is an international biopharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercial use of prescription drugs in such therapeutic areas as cardiology, oncology, respiratory diseases and inflammatory processes, infections, psychiatry and diabetes. The company is represented in more than 100 countries around the world.
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17.11.2015