June 2, 2025
The oncology community is always chasing the next new cancer breakthrough. It’s important work that matters greatly in a world where 20 million patients face a cancer diagnosis every year.
At Illumina, we've spent more than 25 years opening the frontiers of cancer care and discovery.
Every year at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, the latest scientific progress in cancer takes center stage. Clinicians, researchers, life sciences companies, and patient advocates descend on Chicago to present their study findings, connect, and learn about new therapies and technologies. It’s an event that reinforces why we do this work, and who it’s ultimately for.
It’s amazing to reflect on how far the industry has come in advancing precision oncology—even in just the past decade. For instance:
- New precision therapies: Nearly half of all new cancer treatments approved since 1998 are precision therapies.
- Increased survival: Earlier detection, targeted treatments, and minimal residual disease testing have significantly improved survival rates.
- NGS at scale: Advances in next-generation sequencing have accelerated precision oncology research and opened the door to new clinical options for patients.
- Faster insights: Advances in AI and bioinformatics have helped labs, researchers, and clinicians overcome the data challenges of genomics.
Despite all the progress in oncology, it still takes too long for breakthroughs to reach the patients who need them.
Because cancer is a disease of the genome, Illumina is foundational to cancer research. We've spent years building what’s next—and we’ve helped to drive the growth in evidence and advances in technology firsthand.
The tools to deliver better outcomes already exist. Illumina’s TruSightTM Oncology Comprehensive (TSO Comp) is the first FDA-approved comprehensive genomic profiling test kit that can be delivered at scale, across cancer types. It’s reimbursed and built for real-world care settings.
For patients, it can mean the difference between having options—or running out of them. TSO Comp gives oncologists a more complete picture of a patient’s tumor, not just a narrow snapshot that might miss critical genomic drivers.
With public and private payer coverage in place for TSO Comp in the US, and regulatory approval growing in markets around the world, this test is poised to become standard of care, accelerating the insights clinicians need to better understand and treat each patient's unique cancer.
Analysis of circulating tumor DNA—or liquid biopsy—is another method that's been well examined in clinical research. The evidence continues to mount on the clinical utility of liquid biopsy, and we are very encouraged by the latest research being presented at ASCO by the National Cancer Institute’s Molecular Characterization Laboratory (NCI MoCha), in collaboration with our research team, which demonstrates the utility of ctDNA based tests as a primary screening tool for clinical trials. These tests offer comprehensive genomic profiling with minimally invasive procedures, enabling oncologists to more easily match their patients to trials, monitor for recurrence, or evaluate potential therapies.
We should all continue to chase the next new thing. But we also must implement the breakthroughs that have already been delivered.
It’s time to put these powerful tools into practice.
When you’re fighting cancer, it’s always a race. It’s time to unlock the next new standard of care for cancer patients. ➤
