Improving Colon Cancer Healthcare Outcomes

When it comes to surviving colon cancer, early detection saves lives. In fact, if precancerous polys and lesions are found and removed, colon cancer even beprevented. There is an overall 89% survivability rate with colorectal cancer with early detection versus 25% when detected at late stage.

Problem:

Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is extremely effective, but only when patients use them. Unfortunately, 35% of screening eligible individuals, or 83MM people in the US and EU, choose not to get screened because they find current testing, i.e. colonoscopies and fecal screening tests, to be too disgusting, painful, embarrassing, inconvenient or unaffordable, and it’s these unscreened patients who account for and estimated 65% of all CRC deaths and over 75% of CRC treatment costs.

Mission & Vision:

Beacon Biomedical’s mission is to save as many lives as possible by providing patients with an easy, accurate and affordable screening test for colorectal cancer screening. If we do that, we can dramatically improve patient compliance with colorectal cancer screening and in doing so…change the entire landscape associated with this disease for all the stakeholders involved…the patients, their doctors and the healthcare system.

Solution:

Beacon’s solution to this problem of “non-screening” is a test called ColoRT™; an easy accurate and affordable alternative to current colorectal screening procedures. ColoRT is being designed as a simple blood-based test that can be run in both a traditional laboratory setting and as a test that can be employed at the point-of-care (POC) much like a home pregnancy test is used. It’s a highly accurate test (97%) and is expected to cost less than $75 to the patient. The POC test offers the additional advantage of being able to be completed at the doctors’ office in under 10-minutes allowing the doctor and patient to have an immediate and proactive discussion as to the patient’s real-time risk of having colorectal cancer and what next steps should be taken if the test is positive.

The #1 risk of dying from colorectal cancer is that you don’t know you’re at risk in the first place. With ColoRT™, Beacon can help identify those individuals who are at higher risk of having colorectal cancer. Our test can and willimprove colorectal cancer screening compliance and in doing so help detect this cancer earlier. As mentioned above…early detection saves lives.

ColoRT™…improving screening compliance, saving more lives. It really doesn’t get any better than that.

Donald Weber, President and CEO

Source: ICNW