Lung cancer places Mexico in 11th position worldwide in terms of incidence, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Faced with the health challenges that this disease represents, an Argentine company called Biomakers arrives in Mexico with a technological innovation in biomarkers.
These allow patients and their treating physicians to know the DNA of the tumor within 72 hours to make precision medicine decisions more efficient and thus prolong the life expectancy of each person.
The Biomakers company is a leader in precision medicine specializing in genetic and molecular oncology testing in Latin America.
How do biomarkers work?
Biomarkers or genetic and molecular tests are innovative parameters that allow the identification of mutated cancer genes.
As well as they allow the classification of the tumor and the phase in which it is found; with the above, the pertinent individualized treatment is determined.
For this process, the company uses Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology.
With it, it simultaneously analyzes various molecular alterations that allow the doctor to provide oncological therapies.
These range from existing treatments to clinical trials in which patients may be candidates.
“We test patients through a biopsy to collect the DNA of the tumor, delivering the results obtained in record time,” says Rubén Salanova, medical director and co-founder of Biomakers.
The specialist points out that this advance in medicine allows patients to increase their life expectancy by up to five years.
Lung cancer has a high mortality and biomarkers improve the quality and survival of these patients. This is explained by Dr. Maritza Ramos, doctor of the Department of Thoracic Oncology of the National Cancer Institute (INCan).
He adds that with the use of biomarkers, care costs and toxicity complications from therapies such as chemotherapy can be reduced.
The treatment can process up to 10,000 genes at the same time and detect cancer mutations.
According to AMIIF, cancer is the third cause of death in Mexico, specifically lung cancer represents 5.3% of all cases of neoplasms in the country.
It is estimated that by 2030, lung cancer it will cause regarding 135 thousand deaths, 50% more than today.
Biotechnology within the reach of doctors and patients
Since its foundation in 2014, Biomakers develops and implements technological projects.
Its Single Platform for Oncological Testing (PLUTÓN) stands out, which emerged to make time between health professionals and patients more efficient.
This is achieved thanks to the fact that the doctor can request tests in an agile, practical and free way, centralizing all the information and generating statistics.
Biomakers has the Advanced Tumor Biobank and the largest set of Big Data on cancer in Latam.
This houses 70,000 samples of tumors and their biomarkers, for the discovery and development of new drugs.
Biomakers has operations in Argentina, Mexico and Brazil from where it also performs tests on patients from other countries such as Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia.