Between three and five new genetic tests are introduced to the market each month, UnitedHealth Group told us in a report last May. While that may sound like a great step toward more data-driven, personalized medicine, integrating these tests into clinical practice has actually left many physicians scratching their heads.
Nashville startup NextGxDx is trying to help healthcare providers make sense of the some 10,000 genetic testing products it says are on the market today (the American Medical Association estimates that number much more conservatively at 1,200) and choose which ones would best help them with diagnosis or treatment options. As an “online genetic testing marketplace,” NextGxDx consolidates and curates data on genetic tests offered by CLIA-certified laboratories.
“Part of the problem is that the industry is so new and undergoing such rapid growth, but there’s no systematic nomenclature within these tests,” said CEO Mark Harris. “We go back through that data and systematically identify specific disease types and genetic techniques evenly across the board so you can do true test-to-test comparisons.”
Harris said the company collects data from publicly available database and does some of its own research. Then a team of MDs and PhDs combs through that information and organizes it in such a way that physicians and genetic counselors can search the database by disease or test name or gene, for example.
They can also filter and compare their search results by price, turnaround time, type of biological sample required and other factors.
That’s all free for doctors. NextGxDx collects its revenue through service fees paid for on a per-test basis by laboratories partnered with the company. “If a physician selects a test from one of our partnered labs, we can collect some basic identifying information on the patient through a HIPAA compliant portal, and we automatically generate a pre-populated requisition form that they can print out and send to that lab,” Harris said. The results of that test are then returned electronically to the physician through the portal.
After launching the site last year, the company has just secured a $1 million, angel-funded convertible note round that it’s considering a Series A2 financing, piggybacking off of a $500,000 Series A round last year. New Orleans firm Abstraction Ventures and seed-stage investor Blank Slate Ventures have previously invested in the company.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
With the new funds, Harris said the company will continue to drive physician and laboratory adoption of the system and look to add additional services that will make it even easier for physicians to narrow down tests. “We’re very interested, moving forward, in research partnerships,” he said. “We have several on the way. We see ourselves as really linking up with groups that can provide additional decision support to physicians.”
According to a company statement, NextGxDx is set to unveil new features and functionalities at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in San Diego and the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting later this month.
[Confused photo from BigStock Photos]
