In conversation with Dr. Brent Zanke | BioTuesday

The founder and chairman of ArcticDx

What’s the status of your colon cancer test?

Colo-Risk is undergoing clinical testing Colo-Risk is undergoing clinical testing in collaboration with McMaster University in Hamilton. The core intellectual property is owned jointly by Cancer Care Ontario, which runs provincial screening programs, and McGill University. There are additional pieces of IP that we are in the process of acquiring. And we’re hoping it will be launched next year as the first product of its kind to predict an individual’s risk of developing colorectal cancer.

The test combines your genetic predisposition to colorectal cancer with environmental risk factors like age, history of smoking and body mass index to come up with your life-time risk of developing the disease. So, if you’re carrying genes that say you’ve got a 30% or 40% likelihood of getting colon cancer at some time in my life, you will be vigilant in early screening programs. If you could tell from your genetic makeup that you have a 1% chance, that would be in keeping with your risk of developing a lot of other things as well.