Personalis, Inc. today announced its NeXT Personal® cancer assay earned the top spot on The Scientist’s Top 10 Innovations of 2022 list. NeXT Personal detects, quantifies, and monitors circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to catch molecular residual disease (MRD) following surgery and to track response to therapy. The Scientist’s annual ‘Top 10 Innovations’ list highlights instruments, assays, technologies, and techniques for the life sciences. When the list was started in 2008, the top entry was low-cost DNA sequencing, and over the years has included technologies leveraging CRISPR, iPS cells, super-resolution microscopy and rapid COVID testing. This shows the broad range considered when assembling and ranking each year’s list, and the impact of the innovations they have highlighted.

“This recognition by The Scientist reflects the tremendous promise of NeXT Personal to be the most effective platform for actively managing cancer over the long-term,” said John West, CEO of Personalis. “Our personalized testing has the potential to detect cancer recurrence sooner than any other offering today. And, during treatment, it could help answer the question: has the cancer changed in some way, and if so, is there a more effective therapy? Ultimately, with NeXT Personal, we believe cancer can be managed with less uncertainty and with better outcomes."

Launched in December 2021, NeXT Personal is a next-generation, tumor-informed liquid biopsy assay designed to help patients who have previously been diagnosed with cancer by detecting and quantifying both residual and recurrent cancer cells. NeXT Personal delivers industry-leading MRD sensitivity in the 1 part-per-million range, an approximately 10- to 100-fold improvement over previous technologies. This advancement may enable earlier detection of recurrence across a broader variety of cancers, including typically challenging early-stage, low-mutational burden, and low-shedding cancers, such as breast and prostate cancers.

The assay uses whole genome sequencing to identify up to 1,800 single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in each individual's tumor and then builds a corresponding, personalized liquid biopsy panel to identify MRD. NeXT Personal is also the first liquid biopsy assay to combine the best of the tumor-informed and tumor-agnostic approaches. This enables the platform to go beyond traditional MRD to also inform first line therapy selection and detect drug resistance mutations that may be targeted by second line therapy. The technology underlying NeXT Personal is covered by multiple U.S. patents, with several issued in 2022, underscoring its uniquely powerful potential.

Learn more about NeXT Personal and why it earned the #1 spot from The Scientist’s expert judges.

About Personalis

Personalis, Inc. is a leader in advanced cancer genomics, enabling the next generation of precision cancer therapies and diagnostics. The Personalis NeXT Platform® is designed to adapt to the complex and evolving understanding of cancer, providing its biopharmaceutical customers and clinicians with information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, together with the immune system, from a single sample. To enable cancer sequencing, Personalis' Clinical Laboratory was built with a focus on clinical accuracy, quality, big data, scale and efficiency. The laboratory is GxP-aligned as well as Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988-certified and College of American Pathologists-accredited. For more information, visit the Personalis website and follow Personalis on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this press release that are not historical are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of U.S. securities laws, including statements relating to attributes or advantages of NeXT Personal or the NeXT Platform, expected performance or adoption of the NeXT Personal assay, Personalis’ business opportunities, leadership, plans or expectations, the presumed validity or enforceability of the company’s patents or other intellectual property rights, or other future events. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any anticipated results or expectations expressed or implied by such statements. Factors that could materially affect actual results can be found in Personalis’ filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including Personalis’ most recent reports on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q, and include those listed under the caption “Risk Factors.” Personalis disclaims any obligation to update such forward-looking statements.

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