Unlocking Better Cancer Outcomes with Rapid Genomic Testing

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in Australia, claiming over 50,000 lives each year. In the past decade, oncology has seen rapid and transformative advances in treatment, significantly improving survival rates. Many of these new therapies are targeted treatments that require genetic testing to determine patient eligibility.

This has created challenges for the healthcare system, as the number of cancer cases grows, more genes are being tested per patient, and the pathology workforce continues to decline. As the number of actionable biomarkers increases, Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) offers a solution by enabling the analysis of multiple genes in a single test. Rapid NGS, in particular, helps address these system pressures by delivering comprehensive genomic profiles within days via an efficient workflow.

Commissioned by Thermo Fisher Scientific, HTANALYSTS conducted modelling to assess the value of rapid NGS from both a health system and patient perspective. Our analysis found that rapid NGS has the potential to deliver significant benefits, including direct cost savings for the health system and improved quality of life and survival outcomes for patients. While our modelling focused on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the benefits are likely to be even greater if rapid NGS is adopted more broadly across other oncology settings.