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Pilot Cancer Testing Program for Taiwan

Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare is launching a pilot program offering genetic testing to cancer patients, the Taipei Times reports.

The program, which is being led by the ministry, National Health Research Institutes, and Roche Diagnostics Taiwan, is to offer 1,000 patients with advanced-stage stomach, esophageal, gallbladder, pancreatic, or bile duct cancer or non-squamous non-small cell lung carcinoma genetic testing, it adds. The samples are to be analyzed to search for mutations that could guide patients' treatments, the Taipei Times adds. It notes that the testing will be free for the patients in the program.

Taiwan News adds that part of the goal of the program, which is to launch toward the middle of the year, is to support the development of precision medicine in Taiwan and generate data that could be used in the drug development and approval process.

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