NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Belgian cancer diagnostics company OncoDNA said today that it has launched two new precision cancer medicine projects, the budgets for which total €16 million ($17.2 million) and are being supported in part by the Belgian Walloon Region.
The aim of the first project, called Moncodaneum, is to make OncoDNA's OncoKDM software-as-a-service tool available to various cancer treatment centers worldwide to support the integration of cancer-related DNA sequencing data, tumor marker analysis, and imaging.
The Belgian government has contributed €5.2 million toward the project, which has a total budget of €10 million, OncoDNA said. Several pilot projects for implementing OncoKDM are underway.
OncoDNA announced in October that SOLTI, a Barcelona, Spain-based clinical research organization, is using OncoKDM as part of its breast cancer screening research program.
OncoDNA's second project is called Arche. The company plans to commence three prospective studies where the firm will use its OncoDeep and OncoTrace tools to analyze solid and liquid samples from more than 1,200 patients with lung, bladder, or esophageal cancer.
The company said the project should help it to refine its predictive tools, eventually enabling clinicians to select appropriate therapies.
The Belgian government has contributed €3.9 million toward the project, which has a total budget of €6 million.
Last year OncoDNA launched OncoTrace, a blood-based, 411-gene, next-generation sequencing assay for monitoring mutations in circulating tumor DNA.
OncoDeep is OncoDNA's testing service for solid tumor analysis, which combines next-generation sequencing, fluorescence in situ hybridization, methylation, and translocation analysis. OncoDNA raised €7.7 million in a private placement in September to support OncoDeep, along with OncoTrace and its OncoKDM offering.