IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Helio Genomics (“Helio” or “the Company”), an AI-driven healthcare company specializing in diagnostics technology and test development for cancer detection, showcased the results from their latest collaboration with Ochsner Health, demonstrating the utility of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation-based biomarkers for assessing biological aggressiveness and prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) on Friday, October 11, 2024 at the 2024 San Antonio Liver Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Shivani Mahajan, Head of Computational Science at Helio Genomics, presented a poster from the longitudinal study, entitled “Cell-free DNA methylation biomarkers for evaluating prognosis and treatment response in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma”. Additionally, Helio’s abstract was awarded as one of the top three abstracts by the Symposium Committee.
“We are thrilled to be one of three top abstracts selected at the San Antonio Liver Cancer Symposium,” said Dr. Shivani Mahajan, Helio’s Head of Computational Science. “This award underscores the importance of having reliable biomarkers that can evaluate the biological aggressiveness in HCC patients to help physicians make better treatment decisions for improved patient outcomes. In this study, Helio’s methylation score outperformed other established metrics in predicting patients at high risk of progression and in identifying treatment responders, demonstrating that cfDNA methylation-based biomarkers have both diagnostic and prognostic utility.”
“We were thrilled to collaborate with Helio Genomics, a company that is at the forefront of diagnostic technologies for early cancer detection,” said Paul Thevenot, PhD, Associate Professor of Research at Ochsner Health.
“Reliable prognostic biomarkers for HCC are lacking and this study demonstrates that cfDNA methylation-based biomarkers have tremendous potential for addressing this unmet need in the field,” said Ari J. Cohen, MD, FACS, FAASLD, Director of the Multi-Organ Transplant Institute and Director of Transplant Research at Ochsner Health.
Data Highlights:
- In this longitudinal study cohort (n=108), all enrolled patients were previously diagnosed with liver cirrhosis with varying underlying etiologies.
- All patients received liver-directed therapies.
- Blood specimens were drawn from patients at multiple time points starting at diagnosis (pre-treatment).
- Helio’s automated wet lab platform, ECLIPSE™, was used to generate targeted cfDNA methylation sequencing data.
- A model utilizing cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation-based features was trained (using a separate cohort) to distinguish between HCC and cirrhotic patients and applied to an independent longitudinal cohort of HCC patients to calculate a methylation score for each patient at multiple time points.
- Helio’s methylation model score from pre-treatment blood specimens outperformed other metrics such as the ALBI score, GALAD score, MELD score, Child-Pugh score, cumulative lesion size and biomarkers like AFP, AFP-L3 and DCP in predicting patient outcomes and can accurately classify patients with low or high risk of progression.
- Patients who responded to liver-directed therapy showed a significantly larger decline in their methylation score compared to those who did not respond and progressed to advance-stage disease.
- With biopsy contraindicated in early-to-intermediate-stage disease (BCLC A-B), circulating mediators (biomarkers / ctDNA) provide the best potential targets for assessing prognosis, identifying treatment responders, and ultimately developing personalized approaches to treatment.
Helio was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Irvine, CA. For more information, please visit our website at www.heliogenomics.com or www.linkedin.com/company/heliogenomics; information that may be important to investors will be routinely posted in both locations.
About ECLIPSE™
The ECLIPSE platform is Helio’s proprietary laboratory process designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of cfDNA methylation pattern detection and quantification by optimizing each step of the cfDNA methylation capture process, which includes automated cfDNA extraction, library generation and enzymatic conversion, targeted capture and NGS. In particular, our ECLIPSE platform uses an enzymatic conversion approach as opposed to a traditional bisulfite conversion, which yields a higher quantity and quality of converted DNA.
About Helio Genomics
Helio Genomics is a commercial stage, AI-driven healthcare company specializing in diagnostics technology and test development for cancer detection. HelioLiver is a multi-analyte blood test that evaluates cell free DNA (cfDNA) methylation patterns, serum protein markers, and demographic information for the detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). For more information, please visit us at www.heliogenomics.com.
Investor Contact:
Jeremy Feffer
Managing Director
LifeSci Advisors
jfeffer@lifesciadvisors.com
