Strand Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has been granted an Indian patent for a platform that looks for cancer in a simple blood sample. The company announced it in a press release on Tuesday.
The test works on cell-free DNA. The patented system chains together several steps: high-quality genome sequencing, strict quality control, extraction of methylation and fragmentomic features, and machine learning. The output is a call on whether cancer is present and a prediction of the tissue where it began.
One feature the patent singles out is the way the method captures methylation changes across the genome with minimal loss or failure. Methylation changes are a hallmark of cancer, the company said, and picking them up reliably matters for finding disease at an early stage.
The problem it targets
More than 1.5 million new cancer cases are estimated each year, and many patients are still diagnosed late, when treatment options are limited and outcomes are much worse. Guideline-recommended screening covers only a small fraction of cancers and is hard to scale. Strand says falling sequencing costs could let the platform reach people at scale without new local infrastructure.
“Early detection is an increasingly relevant topic as cancer is becoming one of India’s greatest public health challenges,” said Ramesh Hariharan, Strand’s chief executive. “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.”
Strand has worked in genomics, bioinformatics and clinical diagnostics. It says the patent will help it push research and eventual use of blood-based screening tools that complement existing cancer screening programs. The patent also adds to its portfolio in liquid biopsy.
The announcement lands as government and private players in India look to fund affordable diagnostics that can scale. A patent protects the method; it does not show the test works in patients, and the company gave no timeline for trials or approvals. Consult your doctor about any screening decision.
Sources
- Reliance's Strand Life Sciences secures Indian patent for blood-based early cancer detection technology
- Reliance's Strand Life Sciences secures Indian patent for blood-based early cancer detection technology
