GENE - Genetic stock surges ~20% as study suggests geneType tests detects breast cancer earlier

Genetic Technologies ( NASDAQ: GENE ) stock rose ~20% on Thursday after the company announce the publication of a research paper in a journal suggesting geneType's ability to detect breast cancer earlier and provide data for risk stratification.

The paper — which was published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment — reports results from a  study undertaken by the company's scientific team and researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Melbourne.

The study compared geneType's simple breast cancer risk assessment against a complex model with more risk factors and two commonly used clinical models — Gail and IBIS.

The Australian company said GeneType outperformed the Gail and IBIS models by a significant margin and had equivalent performance to the Rosner model without the need to collect a substantially larger number of risk factors.

The geneType model includes the most important risk factors for breast cancer prediction — polygenic risk score, mammographic density and family history, the company added.

Genetic Technologies noted that by using geneType for breast cancer, women who would benefit most from risk-reducing medicines can be identified and a significant reduction in breast cancer incidence could be achieved.

"The publication of this data is a critical step to support our reimbursement strategy. The building list of supportive clinical data along with our budget impact model shows U.S. payers and insurers that the introduction of the easy to implement geneType risk assessment test for breast cancer enables doctors to have increased visibility of at-risk women," said CEO Simon Morriss.

The paper used data from the Nurses' Health Study, which included 121,700 female registered nurses aged 30 years to 55 years, according to the company.

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