Should We Sequence the DNA of Every Cancer Patient?

A startup called Strata Oncology says it plans to give away advanced genetic tests to 100,000 patients struggling with cancer. But there's a profit motive: it hopes to identify patients with specific rare DNA errors and steer them to drug companies.

Strata, which was founded last year and has raised $12 million from investors, says it is set up to run 50,000 next-generation sequencing tests a year. Such tests probe the DNA of tumor tissue, searching for mutations in hundreds of genes at once, hoping to surface clues about what drug a patient should be taking. 

Similar tests are already offered commercially to doctors by several companies, including Foundation Medicine of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and can cost $5,000 each.

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