The platform, from a University of Illinois at Chicago-led team, separates circulating tumor cells from other cell types using size-dependent inertial migration.
At the AGBT meeting last night, Johns Hopkins researcher Joshua Cohen said that the partners are looking to recruit 50,000 healthy individuals for the study.
Research groups and companies are developing and applying tools to enrich for and capture CTCs to diagnose tumors early and monitor patients during treatment.
The team will combine CellMax's circulating tumor cell platform and Medigen's liquid biopsy panel to track treatment response in colorectal cancer patients.
The decision, issued by Medicare Administrative Contractor Palmetto GBA, is effective Dec. 10 and provides coverage of the test for about 25,000 Medicare patients.
The move will gain PFM a Houston lab, as well as ApoCell's proprietary ApoStream liquid biopsy technology for isolation and capture of circulating tumor cells.
