Strand Life Sciences, the Bengaluru genomics company owned by Reliance Industries, has been granted an Indian patent for a blood test that aims to find cancer early and say where in the body it started. Moneylife reported the news on July 7, citing a company release.
The patented platform combines cell-free DNA analysis, genome sequencing, quality control and machine learning. It also relies on methylation and fragmentomic features, which the company describes as “biologically informed.” Cell-free DNA is made of fragments released into the blood, some of them by cancer cells, so a simple draw can stand in for a tissue biopsy. The company says its method can derive genome-wide methylation patterns from sequencing data with minimal loss or failure, and that this improves sensitivity for early detection.
The pitch to Indian patients
Strand puts the number of new cancer cases in India at more than 1.5 million a year. Many patients are diagnosed only once the disease is advanced, and treatment options narrow by then. Existing screening programmes cover a limited number of cancers and are hard to scale, the company says. Falling sequencing costs, it argues, could make early screening at scale more feasible without a large expansion of healthcare infrastructure.
“This patent reflects our commitment to developing scientifically rigorous, AI-enabled liquid biopsy technologies that can help detect cancer earlier from a simple blood sample,” said Ramesh Hariharan, Strand’s chief executive. He called the invention “an important step towards making precision cancer screening more accurate, scalable, and accessible.”
For the company, the patent adds to its intellectual property in liquid biopsy and supports its plan for AI-powered molecular diagnostics in early cancer detection and precision oncology. Strand began as a spin-off from the Indian Institute of Science and works with a network of hospital partners.
Already on the market
Strand has a blood-based test in use already. It launched CancerSpot, which uses methylation profiling to find tumor DNA fragments, at the opening of a 33,000-square-foot Genomics Diagnostics and Research Centre in Bengaluru. The company says CancerSpot’s signatures, drawn from Indian cohorts, have been shown to hold up across global ethnicities.
The patent announcement gave no date for the new platform’s clinical use.
Sources
- RIL's Strand Life Sciences Gets Indian Patent for Blood-based Early Cancer Detection Technology
- Strand Life Sciences, a Reliance subsidiary, Launches Pioneering Blood-based Test for Early Detection of Multiple Cancers
