GENinCode Plc announced its collaboration with MedStar Health (MedStar) to use its CARDIO inCode-Score (CIC-SCORE) test in primary care for the risk assessment of coronary heart disease (CHD). Results of the CIC-SCORE test will be combined with the standard American College of Cardiology Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) Risk Calculator to identify patients who could benefit from earlier preventive treatment. The CIC-SCOREtestassesses an individual's polygenic (DNA) risk of CHD which, together with their clinical risk, provides a comprehensive risk assessment of CHD.

It also addresses the well-recognised need for improvement in CHD standard of care practices. As the largest healthcare provider in the Mid-Atlantic, MedStar is an effective incubator for evaluating new clinical applications and through this study,MedStar physicians will provide valuable feedback on the clinical utility of CIC-SCOREin the primary care setting. The clinical utility data generated will support coverage determination and reimbursement for CIC-SCORE with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).William Weintraub, MD, Director of Population Health Research at MedStar Health Research Institute andKristen Miller, PhD, Scientific Director for the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare at MedStar Health Research Institute, are co-Primary Investigators andChristina Schreiber, DO, a family medicine primary care provider with MedStar, is the physician lead for the study.

The collaboration with MedStar represents the first major US institution to begin clinically assessing CIC-SCORE, forming part of the Early Access commercial programme now underway. Clinicians have for many years recognised the importance of prior CHD events (e.g. heart attack) within families of their patients because genetic factors contribute to the development of atherosclerosis and a patient's family history has become a surrogate for their inherited genetic risk. In recent years, with the advance of genomics, it has become possible to add genetic profiling to conventional CHD risk factors.

The combination of genetics and conventional clinical risk factors will enhance the predictive capability of a patient's risk resulting in a more 'personalised' approach to preventive care. The CIC-SCORE test is a patent protected in-vitro diagnostic polygenic test used to assess the risk of CHD. GENinCode procesess the CIC-SCORE test at its laboratory in Irvine, California and delivers online reports to physicians via its proprietary cloud-based 'SITAB' platform.