New Cancer Blood Test May Eliminate Need for Tissue Biopsy Specimens

The release of a new noninvasive cancer diagnostics test presents the physician with a painless and low-risk alternative to a tissue biopsy.

NEO New Oncology AG (Cologne, Germany) has announced the commercial launch of its “NEOliquid” assay. Requiring only a single blood sample, NEOliquid identifies clinically relevant, cancer-specific point mutations, insertions, deletions, and gene fusions in circulating cell-free DNA down to an allele frequency of 0.1%. In addition, NEOliquid is able to detect copy number alterations in minute amounts of circulating tumor DNA.


The "NEO" diagnostic platform enables physicians to select the optimal targeted therapy for their patients, including participation in suitable clinical trials. The cancer diagnostic test NEOliquid, which is available through certified pathologists, is an efficient, time-saving diagnostic assay that enables parallel analysis of all therapy-relevant genomic alterations in a blood sample. Within 10–15 working days NEOliquid detects mutations, amplifications, deletions, and translocations in over 39 genes relevant for the treatment of solid tumors.

The physician receives a detailed medical report within 10–15 working days after receipt of the patient’s sample. The medical report suggests suitable targeted therapies and an individualized recommendation for treatment if actionable genetic alterations are identified. In addition to treatment options, the report also provides information on relevant clinical trials.

Results of a study describing the clinical efficacy of NEOliquid conducted by investigators at Kantonsspital Luzern (Switzerland) and NEO New Oncology AG were published in the December 2015 online edition of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

“Blood-based genomic diagnostics has the potential to revolutionize cancer care,” said Dr. Lukas C. Heukamp, chief medical officer of NEO New Oncology AG. “We are very excited that with NEOliquid we are able to offer the clinician a tool to understand the patient’s cancer as a whole. NEOliquid facilitates detection of all therapeutically relevant genomic alterations without the need for a painful and often risky re-biopsy, while also being a powerful tool to display genomic differences between primary tumors and corresponding metastases, thereby capturing the entire heterogeneity of the disease.”

Related Links:
NEO New Oncology AG 
Kantonsspital Luzern