Guardant Health Joins Forces With Patient Advocacy Groups to Raise Awareness of Importance of Complete Biomarker Testing for Patients With Advanced Colorectal Cancer

Guardant Health, Inc. (Nasdaq: GH), a leading precision oncology company, is joining forces with leading patient advocacy groups to expand the Clear Your View initiative to raise awareness of the important role complete biomarker testing plays in guiding initial treatment decisions for newly diagnosed advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Current medical guidelines call for testing all six biomarkers in advanced CRC before starting treatment,² yet more than 60 percent of patients are not receiving complete testing which puts them at risk for inappropriate therapy.¹

Now in its second year, the Clear Your View campaign encourages oncologists to “stop, test, and wait” for complete biomarker testing results before starting first-line treatment. Last year, the campaign focused on improving biomarker testing rates in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which remains suboptimal at 20 percent,³ and garnered support from patient advocacy groups GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, LUNGevity Foundation, ALK Positive, and Lung Cancer Action Network. Now the campaign expands its focus to colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death and third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the US,⁴ and garners support from Colorectal Cancer Alliance, Fight CRC, Global Colon Cancer Association, KRAS Kickers, and PALTOWN.

Targeted therapy matched to a patient’s genomic profile has been shown to significantly extend median overall survival rate for advanced CRC patients⁵ as well as NSCLC patients.^7-13 Testing for all recommended biomarkers can help predict which patients are most likely to respond to a certain treatment and which will not respond, and is one of the best ways to ensure that the patient receives the best treatment from the start. For example, while over 60 percent of metastatic CRC patients have a biomarker that may predict poor response to anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody therapy, 72 percent of patients who received anti-EGFR therapy did not first complete guideline-aligned RAS and BRAF biomarker testing to determine eligibility – resulting in patients potentially receiving less efficacious, costly treatment.¹ The growing number of targetable CRC biomarkers makes it imperative that all patients receive complete biomarker testing before starting first-line treatment.⁵