CAMBRIDGE, Mass., MADISON, N.J. and NEW YORK, Oct. 18,
2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM Watson Health (NYSE: IBM) and
Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX) today announced the launch of IBM
Watson Genomics from Quest Diagnostics, a new service that
helps advance precision medicine by combining cognitive computing
with genomic tumor sequencing. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center (MSK) will supplement Watson's corpus of scientific data with
OncoKB, a precision oncology knowledge base to help inform
precision treatment options for cancer patients.
The launch marks the first time that Watson for Genomics has been made widely
available to patients and physicians across the country. Quest
Diagnostics, a leader in genomic sequencing and oncology
diagnostics that serves half the nation's physicians and hospitals,
extends these advanced capabilities to thousands of the country's
community oncologists, who provide an estimated 70 percent of
cancer care in the United States.
The Broad Institute of MIT and
Harvard will provide additional genome
sequencing capabilities as part of the collaboration.
The new service involves laboratory sequencing and analysis of a
tumor's genomic makeup to help reveal mutations that can be
associated with targeted therapies and clinical trials.
Watson then compares those
mutations against relevant medical literature, clinical studies,
pharmacopeia and carefully annotated rules created by leading
oncologists, including those from MSK. Watson for Genomics ingests approximately
10,000 scientific articles and 100 new clinical trials every
month.
"The beauty of Watson is that
it can be used to dramatically scale access to knowledge and
scientific insight, whether a patient is being treated in an urban
academic medical center or a rural community clinic," said
John Kelly III, PhD, senior vice
president, IBM Research and Cognitive Solutions. "Through this
collaboration with the cancer community's leading clinical and
pathology experts, thousands of patients can potentially benefit
from the world's growing body of knowledge about this disease."
Bolstering the corpus of data Watson uses, MSK will provide OncoKB, a
database of clinical evidence that will help Watson uncover treatment options that could
target the specific genetic abnormalities that are causing the
growth of the cancer. Comparison of literature that may take
medical experts weeks to prepare can now be completed in
significantly less time.
"Precision medicine is changing the way we treat cancer and
giving new hope to people living with the disease," said
Jay G. Wohlgemuth, M.D., chief
medical officer and senior vice president of research, development
and medical, Quest Diagnostics. "However, access to genomic
sequencing and tumor analysis required to determine appropriate
precision medicine treatments for a patient can be a challenge.
This service combines Quest's state-of-the-art tumor analysis and
national access with the cognitive computing of IBM's Watson and the deep cancer treatment expertise
of MSK. This is a powerful combination that we believe it will leap
frog conventional genomic services as a better approach for
identifying targeted oncology treatments."
How the Solution Works
The efficacy of cancer therapy
often depends on the type of gene mutations occurring in the cancer
tumor. Many of the latest therapies are designed to work by
targeting tumors with a specific genetic makeup. A therapy that is
effective for one type of cancer may in fact be efficacious for
many others that share similar mutations. But these mutations vary
for each individual and can even change during treatment.
Correlating them to the appropriate treatments requires genomic
sequencing expertise as well as information from knowledge bases,
which must be routinely updated to account for rapidly evolving
scientific discoveries, available drug therapies and, for patients
for whom no therapy is indicated, and appropriate clinical
trials.
The new service helps close these gaps: To access Watson's evidence-based report, the treating
oncologist or other physician will send a patient's solid tumor
biopsy tissue to Quest Diagnostics, where pathologists will prepare
the tissue sample for genomic sequencing. Scientists at Quest will
then sequence the treatment-associated genes using advanced
next-generation sequencing technologies and feed the genetic file
into Watson. Watson will then use the sequenced genetic
data and compare those data against massive bodies of clinical,
scientific and pharmacological databases to help uncover potential
therapeutic options that match the patient's tumor mutations. A
Quest pathologist will review and validate the results and prepare
a report to send back to the treating physician.
"We now know that genetic alterations are responsible for many
cancers, but it remains challenging for most clinicians to deliver
on the promise of precision medicine since it requires specialized
expertise and a time-consuming interpretation of massive amounts of
data," said Paul Sabbatini, MD,
Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Clinical Research, Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center. "Through this collaboration, oncologists
will have access to MSK's expertly curated information about the
effects and treatment implications of specific cancer gene
alterations. This has the power to scale expertise and help improve
patient care."
About IBM Watson Health
Watson is the first commercially available
cognitive computing capability representing a new era in computing.
The system, delivered through the cloud, analyzes high volumes of
data, understands complex questions posed in natural language, and
proposes evidence-based answers. Watson continuously learns, gaining in value
and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. In
April 2015, the company launched IBM
Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform. The new unit
will help improve the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers
to innovate by surfacing insights from the massive amount of
personal health data being created and shared daily. The Watson
Health Cloud allows this information to be de-identified, shared
and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing aggregated view
of clinical, research and social health data. For more information
on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/watson. For more information on IBM
Watson Health, visit: ibm.com/watsonhealth.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers
people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the
world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic
insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire
healthy behaviors and improve health care management. Quest
annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the
physicians and hospitals in the United
States, and our 44,000 employees understand that, in the
right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can
inspire actions that transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
About Memorial Sloan Kettering
Memorial Sloan Kettering is the world's oldest and
largest private cancer center, home to more than 14,000 physicians,
scientists, nurses, and staff united by a relentless dedication to
conquering cancer. As an independent institution, MSK combines 130
years of research and clinical leadership with the freedom to
provide highly individualized, exceptional care to each patient.
And MSK's always-evolving educational programs continue to train
new leaders in the field, here and around the world. For more
information, go to www.mskcc.org.
Media Contacts:
Christine Douglass
IBM Media Relations
415-535-4479
cgdouglass@us.ibm.com
Kim Gorode
Quest Diagnostics Media Relations
973-520-2800
kimberly.b.gorode@questdiagnostics.com
Nicole McNamara
Memorial Sloan Kettering Media Relations
646-227-3633
mcnamarn@mskcc.org
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SOURCE IBM Watson Health; Quest Diagnostics