Systems Biology Goes Commercial As Integrated Diagnostics Launches Lung Nodule Test

With the launch of its Xpresys Lung test on October 28, Integrated Diagnostics Inc. (Indi) joins the ranks of molecular diagnostics companies offering high-value tests that help physicians determine if a nodule uncovered by biopsy or imaging is benign. Another start-up in this field, Veracyte Inc., drew attention to the power of the “benignity” strategy with its Afirma thyroid test. (See Also see "Veracyte: How To Build A Molecular Cytology Company" - In Vivo, 19 February, 2013..) But unlike Afirma, which uses a gene expression signature applied to an indeterminate thyroid tissue biopsy, Xpresys Lung uses mass spectroscopy to measure the relative abundance of a set of 11 proteins in blood after the discovery of a lung nodule on a CT scan – before a biopsy is even ordered.

Even though systems biology – the philosophy that multi-analyte signatures reflecting perturbed disease networks, rather than isolated biomarkers, are key to diagnosing complex diseases – has become a routine molecular...