Liquid biopsy expands diagnostic target from cancer to Alzheimer’s

Test methods based on liquid biopsy, one of the next-generation sequencing (NGS), is expanding its diagnostic field beyond cancer to include Alzheimer’s.

The Korea Research Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) made these and other points in a Tuesday report, “The Status and Outlook of Next-Generation Sequencing Market.”

Liquid biopsy has emerged as a new diagnosis method that supplements the shortcomings of the existing standard methods for cancer diagnosis, such as invasive tissue biopsy sampling.

In Alzheimer's disease, too, a liquid biopsy that can diagnose and treat based on protein markers in the blood is growing, and NGS-based liquid biopsy technology, as well as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), is being developed.

Quanterix's ELISA-based liquid biopsy diagnosis device, designated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an epochal discovery in October 2021, succeeded in detecting p-tau protein, a disease indicator of Alzheimer’s, in a tiny amount of blood using a supersensitive digital analyzer. As a result, it is regarded as the first blood-based, non-invasive diagnosing method for Alzheimer’s.

In addition, Taiwan’s MaqQu and Swiss-based Roche have measured various biomarkers, including amyloid beta tau, and ApoE, in the blood and reported at various theses and presentations at academic conferences.

In Korea, PeopleBio and Medifron are pushing to commercialize their technologies.

PeopleBio earned a permit in 2018 and has been conducting clinical trials to prove its technology’s reliability in mass production. In addition, Medifron is supplementing points pointed out in the licensing course.

“We will soon see the advent of dementia care thanks to its early diagnosis based on the early detection of its initial disease indicators and risk factors,” said Lee Hyun-hee and Kim Moo-woong, two KRIBB researchers, who co-authored the report.

According to the report, the global molecular diagnostics market, including liquid biopsy, grew 48.1 percent in 2020 due to demand for Covid-19 tests. However, its growth pace slowed to 16.4 percent in 2021, reflecting declining demand for Covid-19 tests.

Accordingly, the market size was estimated at $26.29 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow 7.7 percent a year to $36.51 in 2026.