INNOVATIVE healthcare solutions provider Novartis Malaysia has extended its collaboration with key laboratories in Malaysia – Pantai Premier Pathology and Subang Jaya Medical Center (SJMC) – to create an access to PIK3CA testing, thus enabling early diagnosis and vastly improving life quality of advanced breast cancer (aBC) patients.
When diagnosed with a complex disease like aBC, patients are usually encouraged to get screened for mutations. However, these tests are generally expensive and create barriers to patient access.
However, the co-sharing Molecular Diagnosis Programme collaboration which started in 2020 is capable of reducing cost incurred by patients by about 53% for PIK3CA.
Leveraging this Molecular Diagnosis Programme, Pantai Premier Pathology in continuous partnership with Novartis Malaysia, has launched the PIK3CA Booster Campaign last year for HR+/HER2- aBC patients to test for PIK3CA mutation at a further subsided rate of up to 85%.
Similarly, the PIK3CA Booster Campaign was initiated to make these tests more accessible and will continue to run for as long as these subsidised test kits are available.
“We believe that although scientific advances have improved treatment options for many global diseases such as seen in the breast cancer treatment landscape over the last two decades, a lack of effective, low-cost diagnostics hinders the health of many in the developing world,” commented Novartis Malaysia’s country president Mohamed Elwakil.
“Hence, quality healthcare which includes early and effective testing is key to improving the prognosis and quality of life for breast cancer patients and is part of Novartis’ mission to help improve earlier diagnosis for aBC patients with PIK3CA mutation.”
Meanwhile, Pantai Premier Pathology CEO Hareef Muhammed said patients will no longer be shooting in the dark and are able to gain confidence in their treatment pathway based on biomarker testing with cheaper PIK3CA testing made available during this campaign.
“In fact, we have noticed a tremendous uptake since the launch of the campaign in 2022 which emphasises the importance of affordable diagnostics testing,” he added.
To date, the PIK3CA Booster Campaign has seen around 200 patients benefiting from the precise diagnosis leading to timely treatments that have helped improve and extend their quality of life. – April 26, 2023
