May 23, 2012 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Pathology
Goal of unique collaboration is to give physicians a more accurate way to diagnose and treat many types of cancer
Two noteworthy healthcare organizations will collaborate with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to explore how IBM’s Watson can be used to help physicians deliver improved outcomes to patients. The collaboration involves one major health insurer and a prominent academic medical center in Los Angeles.
WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP) will interact with oncology experts at the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Institute in Los Angeles to “educate” and program Watson as a physician’s assistant. What makes this particularly interesting for anatomic pathologists is the potential of this project to marry advances in molecular diagnostics with artificial intelligence in ways that allow physicians to diagnose different cancers earlier and with greater accuracy.
In its story about this development, the Los Angeles Times reported that, per IBM, physicians at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute will be the first to use the Watson technology.
The institute’s doctors will serve as advisers and lend expertise to help shape the initiative to develop effective ways to use Watson. “Cedars Sinai will provide the guidelines and insights to put into Watson,” stated Manoj Saxena, General Manager of IBM Watson Solutions, in a story published by Forbes Magazine.
Watson is IBM’s computing system that incorporates deep question answering technology that allows it to search quickly through vast amounts of data, then process it and analyze it in a way similar to that of the human brain. The Watson system is capable of processing the equivalent of about 200 million pages of data in about three seconds, Forbes reported.
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Feb 23, 2011 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Goal is to produce accurate sequence of one human cancer cell; could lead to new cancer tests
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will find the latest “prize” for a genetic breakthrough to have direct relevance to molecular diagnostics. One million dollars will go to the first person who sequences an entire cancer cell genome, including all of the RNA, using a specific whole human genome sequencer made by Carlsbad, California-based Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE).
This is the fourth of seven challenges being put out to the public at large. It is part of the global biotechnology company’s crowdsourcing initiative, dubbed the “Life Grand Challenges Contest.” Life Technologies first announced the contest in December of 2010, and since then, has posed three earlier challenges, each one also paying $1 million upon completion and verification.
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Jan 25, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Cancer Testing and Molecular Diagnostics Are Main Drivers in This Transaction
In a deal with implications for independent clinical pathology laboratories, pharmaceutical giant Novartis (NYSE: NVS) announced that it would acquire pathology testing company Genoptix, Inc. (NASDAQ: GXDX). Novartis will pay $470 million in cash to acquire all the shares of Genoptix.
Although the total amount of $470 million to be paid for Genoptix is nearly one-half billion dollars, one financial analyst who quickly responded to the news believes that Novartis did not pay a premium price for Genoptix. At William Blair & Company, Analyst Amanda Murphy, CFA, wrote that “…the valuation [of Genoptix] is below what esoteric/specialty labs have been sold for in the past (closer to 10 times or more), which might reflect the company’s recent operational issues and/or potential reimbursement pressure from a shift to in-network status with payers.”
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