Genomic Testing Cooperative, a Lake Forest-based diagnostics company entirely focused on cancer, has opened a second lab near the world-famous University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“We have very good relationships with MD Anderson and other major cancer centers in Houston,” Chief Executive Dr. Maher Albitar told the Business Journal. “So, to be practically across town rather than across the country opens a lot of doors.”
The new 6,900-square-foot facility in Houston brings GTC’s total network to six operating labs with five in the U.S. and one in Europe through a partnership with a German lab announced last year.
Besides its main lab in Lake Forest and Houston, the company’s other labs were opened through its co-op business model, which partners with hospitals, oncology practices and medical professionals to share information and resources.
The company, founded in 2018, commercializes a portfolio of tissue and liquid biopsy tests for blood cancers and solid tumors.
Site Near No. 1 Cancer Center in the U.S.
Chief Commercial Officer Arie Shen said the company in February opened its lab at a site just a few miles from MD Anderson, which is considered the top ranked cancer center in the U.S.
It marks a return for Albitar, who was a tenured professor in pathology and leukemia at the center.
In addition to MD Anderson, GTC also collaborates with other institutions in the area, including Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.
Albitar and Shen did not disclose how much the company invested into opening the Houston lab but said that it’s “covered by the organic growth” they’re seeing.
“We didn’t have to go and raise money for it,” Albitar said.
He called the last two months “record-breaking” for the company, with test volume increasing by 20% in the first and second quarters compared with a year ago.
Clinical Trials
Since opening a satellite lab in Germany last year, the company has been engaged in several clinical trials to expand its pipeline, according to Albitar.
One trial is examining which patients respond to certain therapies and which do not, to avoid giving them the wrong treatment.
Albitar said that another big focus for the company is minimal residual disease, or the small number of cancer cells remaining in a patient’s body after treatment, which have the potential to come back and cause relapse.
“We’re working very hard on changing the practice of pathology from being focused on old technology based on microscopes and immunohistochemistry and taking a more genomics approach,” Albitar said.
GTC’s tests cover all types of cancer, including blood cancers such as leukemia and multiple myeloma.
“We offer very special things for hematology that nobody else offers,” said Albitar, who spent the last four decades of his career focused on hematologic neoplasms.
In 2019, GTC received Medicare coverage for two hematology molecular profiling tests, with one analyzing 302 DNA genes and more than 1,600 RNA genes.
The company also offers liquid biopsy testing, reducing the need for bone marrow biopsy.
