In a session at the 2022 Community Oncology Conference, experts convened to discuss the current landscape of comprehensive genomic profiling in the United States.

The panel, moderated by Kashyap Patel, MD, Chief Executive Officer, Carolina Blood & Cancer Care Associates, President, Community Oncology Alliance, highlighted the current deficit in uptake of comprehensive genomic profiling and explored potential solutions to this problem.

Participants included Richard “Mike” Barlow, Principal, Barlow Advisors; William K. Oh, MD, Chief Medical Science Officer, Sema4, and Prasanth Reddy, MD, MPH, FACP, Senior Vice President, Global Enterprise Oncology Head, Covance/Labcorp Drug Development.

Mike started the discussion with his journey of establishing the subregulartory structure for genomic testing.

“What [we] saw early on in this particular space is that the technology was about to explode and bring into play a lot of testing capability that we felt in truth that not everybody should be doing,” he explained, adding “We felt that we needed a way to identify and structure and bring those tests to the market because in the lab developed test space, there's not a real oversight.”

The MolDX Program allowed stakeholders to understand the value of these new tests in terms of safety, effectiveness, and clinical validity, and enabled the establishment of coverage and reimbursement for these molecular diagnostic tests.

“Today there's over 1800 labs registered in the system and over 12,000 tests are now clear through the MolDX Program and it's growing every day,” Mike said.

Next, Dr Reddy discussed disparities with using comprehensive genomic profiling in community clinics and how this data can be used to drive appropriate drug development.

“We now have the tools to interrogate patients’ cancer, figure out what's driving that cancer, and then put them on the appropriate therapy. Tying back the diagnostics to the drug development businesses is critical,” said Dr Reddy, adding “It's absolutely essential that we improve access to comprehensive genomic profiling.”

Dr Reddy highlighted the importance of making clinical trials a therapeutic option. Getting patients on trials will reduce biases in the current testing database, which is critical to reduce disparities.

Dr Oh discussed bioinformatics and the incredible amount of genomic data that can be democratizing the access to care. The ability to aggregate clinical and genomic data in ways that can be delivered back to the practitioner at the point of care is going to make care more efficient, more effective, and improve outcomes for patients.

Dr Patel brought up the role of liquid biopsy, asking Dr Reddy where he sees the role of liquid biopsy in the future. “There's a number of reasons why liquid biopsy is going to be absolutely critical as a compliment to tissue biopsy, moving into the future,” said Dr Reddy.

Dr Reddy highlighted the importance of being able to test for multiple biomarkers at once as opposed to testing for one at a time. “I think the bottom line is liquid biopsy will make it easier for more patients to get tested,” he said.