After becoming aware of GTG through a small caps report today,...

After becoming aware of GTG through a small caps report today, which highlighted the Project Shivom agreement, I started trying to get a handle on the IP the company owns for assessing breast cancer risk.

What I found, I think will be of use to investors who may not have looked into this.
My primary concern is that the company seems to be overplaying the value of its assessment tool Brevagenplus.

Its Facebook page carries posts such as:




and



Both seem to sell the notion that the test leaves the patient knowing what their 5 year risk for breast cancer is.

However Bluecross Blueshield of North Carolina says the following regarding these sorts of testing technologies:

"Clinical genetic tests may improve the predictive accuracy of currently used clinical risk predictors. However, the magnitude of improvement is small, and clinical significance is uncertain. Whether the potential harms of these tests due to false-negative and false-positive results are outweighed by the potential benefit associated with improved risk assessment is unknown. Evaluation of this technology is further complicated by the rapidly increasing numbers of SNVs associated with a small risk of breast cancer. Long-term prospective studies with large sample sizes are needed to determine the clinical validity and utility of SNV-based models for use in predicting breast cancer risk. The discrimination offered by the genetic factors currently known is insufficient to inform clinical practice. The evidence is insufficient to determine the effects of the technology on health outcomes."

https://www.bluecrossnc.com/sites/d...predict_risk_of_nonfamilial_breast_cancer.pdf

This concerns me.  They seem to be saying that:
A) the improvement this test offers over clinical risk predictors is small
B) the harm of actions taken due to false negatives and false positives may outweigh any benefits from acting on the test results
C) evidence is lacking to determine the effects of the test on health outcomes

Their Facebook communication is certainly overstepping things, compared to the Bluecross Blueshield policy statement vis-a-vis these technologies.  Personally, I distrust companies that hype things in this manner, especially in the arena of therapies or tests related to life-threatening diseases.

Their test may turn out to be extremely effective, but right now, we don't seem to have evidence of that, and they are communicating as if it is effective.  That is my concern.