In attendance were founders and representatives from over 100 leading companies and institutions involved in cancer screening and early detection from numerous countries and regions, including China, America, Australia, Canada, Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden and etc. The event attracted over 1,000 participants and its online multimedia platform garnered over 4 million viewers.

The lineup of speakers at the Conference included winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2005 Prof. Barry J. Marshall as well as representatives from Genetron Health, SeekIn, AnchorDx, Cellomics, MiRXES, Take2 Health, IMBDx, Illumina and etc.

Based on the updated Globocan 2020 database, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimates that the global cancer burden hit 19.3 million new cases and nearly 10 million deaths in 2020. The importance of early screening for cancer is becoming increasingly evident as such testing can significantly improve the survival rate of cancer patients.

This has led to the emergence of a number of companies that are committed to enabling early detection of the disease. According to initial data from ZAODX, the amount of money that has gone into financing and M&As related to startups involved in early cancer detection worldwide has grown to approximately US$16 billion since the beginning of 2020. Many of the forward-thinking firms that participated in the Conference have been supporting early detection efforts by exploring novel and diversified approaches, including circulating tumor cells (CTCs), exosomes, transcriptomes, proteomes, metabolomes, and microbiomes in addition to the mainstream genomic analysis-based approach.

Revolving around its original, proprietary Mutation Capsule technology, Genetron Health has launched an innovative product for the early screening of liver cancer. The solution can simultaneously detect protein, methylation and multiple gene mutations based simply on the collection of a miniscule amount of blood. Data from a large-scale prospective cohort study shows that with 88% sensitivity and 93% specificity, Genetron Health's early screening solution has managed to move beyond the hurdles encountered by traditional technologies for these two indicators, providing strong technical support for the success of such screening.

"Early screening offerings should be verified by large-scale prospective cohort studies that can prove the safety, efficacy, convenience and reliability of such products in detecting cancer at an early stage when the disease can still be reversed," said Genetron Health COO Lei Li. "In addition, we plan to further raise public awareness around early screening and make early detection of cancer accessible to everyone by leveraging leading-edge technologies."

During the Conference, SeekIn founder and CEO Dr. Mao Mao delivered a speech entitled Integrating Multi-Omics Features for Blood-Based Cancer Early Detection while AnchorDX vice president Dr. Chen Zhiwei shared his viewpoints on how to develop first-in-class cancer early diagnosis products in China.

MiRXES co-founder and CTO Dr. Zou Ruiyang shared his insights saying, "good quality control of sample management and building multi-dimensional data analytical capabilities are cornerstones for the innovation of cancer screening technologies."

He also introduced MiRXES's technological breakthrough — a proprietary 3-primer design and the mSMRT-qPCR profiling platform — which has enabled MiRXES to develop the world's first gastric cancer early detection assay GASTROClear^TM, which is currently undergoing clinical registration in Japan and China.

The ZAODX Awards (also known as the Golden Screening Awards) were held concurrently to the Conference and aim to encourage pioneers, innovators and producers that have made contributions to the growth of the cancer screening sector to serve as guardians of life and health by continuously developing, improving, and promoting new technologies for the early screening and detection of cancer by way of a human-centric mindset.

12 individual and corporate/institutional awards were presented, including the ZAODX Award·Leading Company which was granted to AnchorDX, AnPac Bio, BGI Genomics, Biochain, Creative Biosciences, Delfi Diagnostics, Exact Sciences, Freenome, Grail, Genetron Health, Guardant Health, InterVenn Biosciences, LAMH Group, MiRXES, New Horizon Health, Olink Proteomics,Singlera Genomics and etc. Full list of the ZAODX Awards could be found at www.zaodx.com.