Biocartis Group NV, Mechelen, Belgium, announced a large prospective lung cancer study, co-supported by AstraZeneca, has been selected to be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress taking place September 19-21 2020.1 Rapid and accurate EGFR mutation testing is essential for making informed treatment decisions for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and the study concluded that Idylla reduced EGFR mutation testing turnaround time by more than a week versus reference methods, allowing earlier patient management decisions. The Facilitate study is a large, prospective, real-world data set study across 16  sites in Belgium, France, Germany and Italy that was launched as part of the agreement between Biocartis and AstraZeneca, Cambridge, UK, aimed at obtaining faster lung cancer molecular diagnostic biomarker results. Between January 2019 and July 2020 a large set of 1,370 advanced NSCLC patient samples were tested using the Idylla EGFR Mutation Test (CE-IVD) and local reference methods including targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS). Results showed a 97.6% overall percentage agreement between Idylla and reference methods. Ninety percent of all samples were tested in less than 7 days using the Idylla technology, versus less than 21 days using the reference methods. This demonstrates that Idylla improves turnaround time, allowing for fast-track testing when required, complementary to slower existing laboratory processes and systems. “A large study with a broad data set such as this one with our partner AstraZeneca, who is at the forefront of lung cancer treatment, shows once again how Idylla can make a significant improvement for patients,” says Herman Verrelst, chief executive officer of Biocartis. “With Idylla, a fully automated rapid EGFR mutation diagnostic workflow becomes possible, decreasing testing turnaround time and allowing earlier patient management decisions, following diagnosis.” “Lung cancer often requires immediate and adequate treatment. Rapid detection of the vast majority of relevant EGFR mutations provides an excellent targeted treatment option avoiding chemotherapy,” says Prof. Michael Hummel, PhD, Head of the Molecular Pathology Group, Institute of Pathology, Charite – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “In our large real-world study it became very obvious that the Idylla system is able to support treatment decisions extremely fast and accurate, much faster than the in-house solutions applied.” The abstract poster will be published during the poster sessions at the ESMO Virtual Congress taking place between 19-21 September 2020 and is available from ESMO. Other Idylla study abstracts selected for ESMO can also be downloaded from ESMO. References 1 Hummel M. et al, “FACILITATE: a real-world multicentre prospective study investigating the utility of a rapid, fully automated RT-PCR assay vs reference methods (RM) for detecting epidermal growth factor receptor mutations (EGFRm) in NSCLC”, ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 (19-21 September 2020), published online on 14 September 2020.