Cancer risk blood test offered under new partnership deal

PinPoint Data Science, the company behind an AI-powered blood test to assess a patient’s risk of cancer, has signed a strategic agreement with Alderley Lighthouse Labs.

Under the deal, Alderley will become the first private laboratory in the UK to offer the PinPoint Test, opening the way for hospitals and clinics across the NHS and private sector to offer it to patients.

The multi-cancer sensitive test was developed using NHS records of 371,799 suspected cancer patients and validated in a five-year NHS service evaluation of 16,481 urgent suspected cancer referrals. It uses machine‑learning to analyse and combine 30 blood markers, plus age and sex, to identify those who require urgent investigation. It will be offered for gynaecological, upper gastrointestinal, lower gastrointestinal, lung and head and neck cancers.

PinPoint Data Science CEO Giles Tully said: ‘Since publication of our NHS evaluation results, we have received a lot of interest from new areas of the NHS and providers across the independent sector, so this agreement with Alderley Lighthouse Labs really is a breakthrough moment for us. It means we have a partner who can accelerate delivery of PinPoint testing for patients across the country. PinPoint’s technology represents an upgrade to traditional blood testing that can unlock new levels of insight into cancer risk. In Alderley, we have found a partner that shares our vision for a future in which AI-enabled technologies enhance and improve diagnostics.’

The NHS is moving to pilot the test in the gynaecological pathway. In the real-world NHS evaluation, PinPoint correctly identified 99.1% of cancers as elevated or high risk and delivered a negative predictive value of 99.8% for women in the lowest‑risk group.

Professor Sean Duffy, PinPoint’s chief medical officer and a former NHS England national clinical director for cancer, said: ‘Now the independent sector will be able to offer PinPoint to their patients. Take a woman who sees her GP with postmenopausal bleeding. On the NHS, almost all women are sent for an invasive trans-vaginal scan, and many an uncomfortable hysteroscopy, even though around 90% do not have cancer at all. PinPoint can identify those women at lowest risk and spare them from invasive procedures they don’t need; freeing up capacity for those that do.’