BURLINGTON, NC — Leading health diagnostics firm Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) (NYSE: LH), is the first participant in BRCA Share, a novel datashare initiative co-founded by Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), and Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, to provide scientists and laboratory organizations around the world with open access to genetic data associated with cancer.

BRCA Share builds on a BRCA gene-data curation process developed by Inserm with BRCA data, maintained in its Universal Mutation Database, developed over a decade of patient testing by 16 laboratories in France.

Although several mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are established as cancer causing, there are instances when a patient receives an indeterminate test result because the individual’s genetic information reveals a gene variant of uncertain significance (VUS). Members of BRCA Share will pool de-identified clinical laboratory patient data on BRCA1 and BRCA2.

Greater insight into the cancer risk of VUS will reduce the potential for indeterminate test results, leading to improvements in risk-assessment for certain cancers.

Dr. Marcia Eisenberg, LabCorp senior vice president and chief scientific officer tells WRAL TechWire the project is focused on “That very small percentage of results that don’t have an actionable follow-up. This is all about the patients. For patients, it’s all about understanding a test result. This is to help put an actionable answer around an indeterminent or variable of unknown significance.”

Under BRCA Share, all members will have access to the same pool of jointly contributed BRCA data. Quest Diagnostics will license BRCA data, including from Inserm’s UMD-BRCA1/2 databases. User group members will also establish processes for reporting new findings to members, which commercial labs may use to update their clinical test reports for patients, including those whose prior test results may have been indeterminate.

Hearing ‘you have high risk of cancer’ is devastating, but for those who receive an inconclusive result, hearing ‘you may have high risk, but we are not sure’ can be worse,” said Sue Friedman, executive director of the patient advocacy group, Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE).

“FORCE applauds current and future participants in the BRCA Share program for creating a platform that is structured to promote transparency of clinical-grade test data and to catalyze research leading to clinically significant discoveries.”

Eisenberg says that both Quest and LabCorp are actively reaching out to other labs to participate. “I don’t think it will be very long before others join because of the benefits of database sharing.”