Invested by celebrities such as Gates and Bezos in a new company "Grail" to find cancer from the blood

ByR. Nial bradshaw

"Cancer", which is said to be the leading cause of death for Japanese people and is said to enter the top three in the world, is a major problem that can not be avoided in talking about the health of modern people. Companies newly established by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos also contributed "Grail"Is trying to send out to the world techniques that can detect the incidence of any cancer simply by analyzing blood.

Illumina, partners make $ 100 million bet to detect cancer via blood test | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-illumina-idUSKCN0UO0W920160111

Illumina Forms New Company to Enable Early Cancer Detection via Blood-Based Screening
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/biospace/template.PAGE/menuitem.ab520ce17e34ab71ff00d635c0908a0c/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20160110005039&newsLang=en

Early detection and early treatment are considered to be most effective for the treatment of cancer, but many of conventional cancer tests are carried out for people who already have cancer,Doubt the effectResearch results are also announced. Illumina, a gene sequencing company, launched a new company, "Grail", has developed a technology that can detect cancer in a simple way that is not conventional, just examining blood.

In Grail 's Cancer Inspection, it first finds fragments of DNA and RNA flowing out of tumor cells and transported into the blood and circulating throughout the body. These are circulating tumor nucleic acids (circulating tumor nucleic acid:CtNAs) Grail is called for this ctNAsDNA sequencingIt is a technique to detect the presence or absence of cancer by doing it. At that time, the inspection cost is about 500 dollars (60,000 yen), and the company is aiming for commercialization in 2019.

ByPolygon Medical Animation

Grail and its partners are planning to advance development by first investigating the blood of the target person who is over 300,000 people, among which only the detection rate, but also the misdiagnosis rate will be investigated together . By lowering the rate of misdiagnosis, we are aiming to prevent unfortunate accidents such as unnecessary surgery and overlooking cancer. Grail first plans to conduct this test on lung cancer and breast cancer, then spread the organs such as liver and ovary to the target.

Along with a number of investment companies, Bill Gates of former Microsoft and founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, etc., are investing in the establishment of this Grail, and it exceeds 100 million dollars (about 12 billion yen) It is said that investment money has gathered.

Cancer testing by blood is an area attracting attention, according to research firms the market size is estimated at 10 billion dollars a year (about 1 trillion 200 billion yen). Investment Bank "Piper JaffrayAccording to a survey, 38 companies are already promoting technological development in this field, many of them are "liquid biopsies" targeting patients whose cancer has already been known to be affected It is a method called, not to discover the occurrence of new cancer anymore.

Although it is a new technology of Grail that the future prospects are likely to be opened, it is said that there is also a side that requires caution in development. We provided blood test service by touching "10 kinds of cancer can be found"Pathway GenomicsThe establishment of effectiveness is highly demanded, such as having received disciplinary action from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because its effect is not proved and there is a possibility that public hygiene may be harmed. Grail responded that Reuters will check the effectiveness and safety of the technology in cooperation with the FDA in the interview.