FoundationOne Heme Released for Clinical Use

December 10, 2013 | Foundation Medicine has released its second genetic cancer profiler for clinical use, this time targeting hematologic cancers and certain sarcomas. Like the company's previous release, FoundationOne, which analyzes NGS data on solid cancers for actionable mutations, the new FoundationOne Heme searches for variants in 405 cancer-related genes, capturing single-nucleotide polymorphisms, copy number variations, and insertions and deletions, to deliver a report on any variants associated with FDA-approved therapy options. Heme also performs RNA sequencing on 265 genes to find evidence of hybridized "fusion genes," a type of mutation that is especially common in sarcomas and hematologic cancers like leukemias, lymphomas and myelomas. The new clinical product broadens the range of cancers amenable to Foundation Medicine's personalized analyses. It was developed in partnership with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Business Wire