EPIC SCIENCES TO PRESENT MULTIPLE ABSTRACTS AT ASCO 2020 HIGHLIGHTING THE IMPORTANCE OF CTCs IN LIQUID BIOPSY

SAN DIEGO, Calif., May 26, 2020 – Epic Sciences, Inc. today announced that it will present three abstracts at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Virtual Scientific Program to be held from May 29 – June 2, 2020. Epic Sciences will present new data demonstrating the role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer prognosis and treatment outcomes.

“These presentations underscore the unique value CTCs have in the care of patients with advanced prostate cancer,” said Rick Wenstrup, MD, chief medical officer at Epic Sciences. “New data demonstrates the clear prognostic value of CTC enumeration measured by Epic’s platform; CTC counts were found to be a better predictor of one-year survival relative to other common blood-based measures including Lactate-dehydrogenase (LDH), Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and Alkaline-phosphatase (ALK).

“The ability of the Epic platform to delineate clinically meaningful CTC heterogeneity is further demonstrated in this case with the identification of small-cell neuroendocrine-like CTC subtypes that have selective sensitivity to platinum agents in patients with advanced prostate cancer, as well as new data that shows the unique advantages of CTC single-cell genomic analysis in identifying alterations such as BRCA2 copy loss compared to tissue-based testing,” said Howard Scher, MD, Chief of Genitourinary Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering. 

The data presented at this year’s ASCO Scientific Program complement the extensive ongoing clinical research in prostate cancer. Epic Sciences’ commercialized prostate cancer test for nuclear-localized AR-V7 assists physicians in choosing between androgen receptor-directed therapies or taxane chemotherapy for their patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Epic’s test for AR-V7 is offered by its partner, Exact Sciences, under the brand Oncotype DX AR-V7 Nucleus Detect®. This test is Epic’s first test that is commercially available and reimbursed by Medicare. 

Epic Science’s proprietary rare-cell-detection platform can detect one cell in 10 million cells to provide contextual analysis with spatial, morphological, cellular and genomic information. Today Epic assists more than 40 global biopharmaceutical partners by applying its unbiased, enrichment-free approach to identify and characterize circulating tumor cells in the blood samples of subjects of dozens of clinical trials across a wide range of drugs.

The following are details of the abstract virtual sessions, which are also available at www.asco.org and www.epicsciences.com.

Abstract 5531/Poster 112: Genitourinary Cancer Poster Session:  Prevalence and tissue concordance of BRCA2 copy number loss evaluated by single-cell, shallow whole-genome sequencing of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Abstract 5571/Poster 152: Genitourinary Cancer Poster Session: Clinical significance of CTC enumeration on the Epic Sciences platform in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients treated with AR signaling inhibitors (ARSi).

Abstract 5572/Poster 153: Genitourinary Cancer Poster Session: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with small-cell like pathology are prevalent in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) and show selective pharmacodynamic reductions in patients treated with platinum but not ARSI or taxane.