Early Diagnosis Consortium

Cancer Research UK and our commercial arm, Cancer Research Technology (CRT), have joined forces with Abcodia, the biomarker validation company with a focus on cancer screening, to develop new blood tests to detect a range of cancers when they are still at a very early stage.

The Early Diagnosis Consortium (EDC) aims to discover and validate blood-based biomarkers that may be used in cancer screening. Abcodia, through its exclusive commercial license, will provide access to longitudinal serum samples from the UKCTOCS biobank created by researchers at University College London. The programme aims to use best in class technology and engage with some of the world's leading researchers and clinicians.

Survival rates in breast, colorectal and cervical cancers have improved due to earlier diagnosis and better treatments. However there are still many other cancers that still have low survival rates.
Finding cancer before it has metastasized often means that there are more options for treatment and cancer screening is aimed at testing before there are any symptoms. A cancer screening blood test is relatively inexpensive, would be widely available and compliance rates would be improved.

This project aims to discover, verify and validate potential serum screening biomarkers, biomarker panels or statistical algorithms for common cancers that can be used for screening people either at high risk of cancer or the population in general.

Cancers with a high degree of unmet clinical need, for example lung cancer, are likely to be selected.
Once these validated biomarkers are identified the aim is to further test them in prospective studies and make them available for use in the UK and around the world.

This project is expected to have  three main phases - discovery, verification and validation. Prior to commencing the discovery phase, the partnership will conduct a pilot.

The pilot aims to

Determine which cancers will be the focus of the collaborationIdentify the most appropriate technology suited to testing serum biomarkersAssessing and selecting technology partners

Phase 1 is the discovery phase that aims to establish the best biomarker for the screening of each cancer. We will select cohorts of longitudinal pre-diagnosis samples for each cancer type selected together with the appropriate numbers of controls. The sample set for each cancer will be tested on each technology platform including

microRNAProteomicsDNA methylationTumour auto-antibodiesOther technologies such as glycans, exosomes etc.

The EDC is currently inviting expressions of interest from potential technology partners, please visit the website  for more information.

At the end of phase 1, Cancer Research UK along with Abcodia and CRT will jointly select the most promising markers and technology to take forward to the verification phase.

Phase 2 will verify the new biomarkers in terms of their sensitivity and conduct specificity studies. At the end of the phase we will be seeking commercialisation partners who have the ability to develop production ready assays and validating these assays in defined sample sets to ensure reproducibility.
The phase 3 validation study is focussed on confirmation of the biomarker performance using the production ready assays and creating data packs in support of CE marking and other regulatory approvals.

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