Paige, Janssen Team for AI-Based Bladder Cancer Test

The biomarker test is a screening tool to predict the occurrence of actionable genomic alterations.

The biomarker test is a screening tool to predict the occurrence of actionable genomic alterations.
The biomarker test is a screening tool to predict the occurrence of actionable genomic alterations.
Paige

Paige, a global provider of clinical AI applications in pathology, announced a collaboration with Janssen Research & Development, LLC (Janssen) to evaluate the potential of a hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-based, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered biomarker test to predict the presence of certain actionable alterations in the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) genes in patients with advanced urothelial cancer, also known as bladder cancer.

 The goal is to improve rates of confirmatory molecular testing and accelerate recruitment of patients into biomarker-driven clinical trials that are enrolling patients with certain tumor FGFR mutations.

Currently, most patients with bladder cancer do not have their tumors sequenced to identify potential genomic alterations and potentially inform more targeted treatment decisions. For those who are tested, results from today’s confirmatory molecular FGFR tests can take weeks to be returned to the ordering physician, slowing time to trial enrollment and treatment. Leveraging existing H&E data to provide guidance for care can reduce barriers for clinical trial recruitment by providing results for a digitized image of a routine biopsy in less than one hour.

The technology is currently being evaluated in Janssen’s clinical trials to screen for FGFR gene alterations in adult patients with advanced urothelial cancer using the Paige Platform, a digital pathology software platform that is inclusive of an FDA-cleared and CE-marked viewer and storage capabilities that is compatible with existing digital pathology solutions, including most scanners, monitors, and laboratory information systems (LIS). As more clinical trial sites adopt a digital pathology workflow, Paige will be able to support local testing.

“We are excited to mark a new chapter in deploying Janssen’s AI technology in a clinical setting to efficiently detect biomarkers, in this case some rare gene mutations and fusions,” said Jill Stefanelli, Ph.D., President and Chief Business Officer at Paige. “With the global deployment of our Paige Platform underway, we will make our capability broadly available in support of the clinical development of targeted and other classes of therapeutic drugs and patient identification for future biomarker and drug development programs.”

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