ClearNote Health to Present New Validation Data for Avantect Pancreatic Cancer Test at ASCO 2026
ClearNote Health has announced that it will present new multi-cohort validation data for its Avantect Pancreatic Cancer Test during the ASCO Annual Meeting 2026, which will take place in Chicago from May 29 through June 2, 2026.
The company said the latest findings further demonstrate the strong performance of its blood-based liquid biopsy test in identifying pancreatic cancer among individuals considered to be at elevated risk for the disease. The presentation is expected to highlight the test’s potential role in improving early cancer detection, an area of significant unmet medical need given the historically poor survival rates associated with pancreatic cancer.
ClearNote Health’s scientific and medical leadership team, including newly appointed Chief Medical Officer Jeffrey Venstrom and Chief Scientific Officer Samuel Levy, will attend the conference to discuss the company’s clinical progress, commercialization strategy, and broader vision for advancing early cancer detection technologies.
Pancreatic cancer is widely regarded as one of the deadliest forms of cancer because it is often diagnosed only after the disease has reached an advanced stage. Symptoms frequently appear late, and many patients are diagnosed after the cancer has already spread beyond the pancreas, limiting the effectiveness of available treatments.
Healthcare experts have long emphasized that earlier detection could substantially improve outcomes by enabling surgery or other interventions before the disease progresses. However, screening tools for pancreatic cancer remain limited, especially for people who may be at elevated risk but do not yet show symptoms.
According to Dr. Venstrom, the new data being presented at ASCO supports the clinical value of the Avantect Pancreatic Cancer Test in helping address this challenge.
“Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most lethal malignancies because it is often diagnosed too late for curative intervention,” said Dr. Venstrom.
He added that the company is excited to share validation results demonstrating strong test performance among higher-risk individuals and noted that the blood-based test is designed to complement current diagnostic and risk assessment approaches by providing clinically actionable insights when early intervention could have the greatest impact.
At the ASCO meeting, ClearNote Health plans to present findings from an independent validation cohort involving 1,445 individuals who carried multiple pancreatic cancer risk factors.
The study population included individuals with type 2 diabetes, family history of pancreatic cancer, and known genetic predispositions associated with increased cancer risk.
In this large validation cohort, the Avantect Pancreatic Cancer Test demonstrated an overall sensitivity of 82.6%, meaning the test correctly identified a large proportion of patients with pancreatic cancer.
Importantly, the test also achieved a sensitivity of 76.8% for early-stage disease, including Stage I and Stage II cancers. Detecting pancreatic cancer at these earlier stages is considered particularly valuable because treatment options and survival outcomes are significantly better before the disease advances.
The validation data also showed a specificity rate of 97.5%, indicating a very low rate of false-positive results among individuals who did not have pancreatic cancer.
In addition to the primary cohort, researchers evaluated two additional validation cohorts totaling 338 individuals enriched for new-onset type 2 diabetes, another population known to have increased pancreatic cancer risk.
According to the company, the Avantect test continued to demonstrate robust performance in these clinically relevant high-risk populations, further supporting its potential utility in real-world screening and surveillance settings.
Dr. Levy explained that the strong performance results stem from the test’s advanced multimodal design, which integrates several layers of biological information into a unified cancer detection model.
“Our enhanced Avantect test combines a rich set of signals from epigenomic, fragmentomic, and genotyping sources in concert with glycan-specific measures into a multimodal cancer detection model,” said Dr. Levy.
He noted that the precision observed in the validation studies reflects the test’s ability to analyze multiple cancer-associated biological signals simultaneously rather than relying on a single biomarker approach.
The upcoming ClearNote ASCO presentation is titled “Multi-cohort validation of a multi-analyte liquid biopsy test for early-stage pancreatic cancer detection.”
The abstract and poster presentation will be delivered by Anna Bergamaschi during the Gastrointestinal Cancer session in Hall A – Posters and Exhibits on Saturday, May 30, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time.
ClearNote Health stated that the Avantect Pancreatic Cancer Test is designed as a simple blood test intended for individuals who may face increased pancreatic cancer risk due to hereditary or clinical factors.
The company specifically identified three target patient populations for the test: individuals with known genetic predispositions, people with a family history of pancreatic cancer, and adults aged 50 or older who have recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
New-onset diabetes in older adults has increasingly drawn scientific attention as a possible early warning sign for pancreatic cancer in some patients. Researchers are actively exploring whether targeted screening in this population could improve earlier diagnosis rates.
ClearNote Health’s technology is already being incorporated into several major international pancreatic cancer research initiatives.
One of the most notable programs is the Surveillance of pAncreatic health aFter diabEtes Diagnosis, or SAFE-D, study led by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
The SAFE-D initiative is considered one of the world’s largest projects focused on evaluating pancreatic cancer detection strategies in people with newly diagnosed diabetes.
The Avantect test is also being integrated into the PRECEDE Consortium, an international multi-center collaboration dedicated to improving earlier diagnosis and risk-stratified screening for people with familial or genetic risk factors associated with pancreatic cancer.
Researchers participating in PRECEDE aim to advance global understanding of pancreatic cancer biology and develop more effective screening pathways for high-risk populations.
The presentation at ASCO 2026 represents another important milestone for ClearNote Health as the company continues to expand clinical evidence supporting its liquid biopsy platform.
Interest in blood-based cancer detection technologies has increased significantly in recent years as researchers and healthcare providers search for less invasive, more scalable methods to identify cancers earlier in their development.
For pancreatic cancer in particular, earlier detection remains one of the most critical challenges in oncology. Because the disease is often diagnosed too late for curative treatment, even modest improvements in early detection could potentially translate into meaningful survival benefits for patients.
By combining advanced molecular analysis with multimodal detection capabilities, ClearNote Health hopes the Avantect Pancreatic Cancer Test can become part of a broader effort to improve outcomes for patients facing one of the deadliest cancers worldwide.
About ClearNote Health
ClearNote Health is a privately held company dedicated to improving early detection and monitoring for some of the deadliest forms of cancer. Developed by scientists in the Stephen Quake laboratory at Stanford University, the company’s patented Virtuoso™ epigenomics platform builds on the latest advances in artificial intelligence and bioinformatics to measure active biological differences between cancer and healthy cells in a blood sample.
The highly sensitive, noninvasive Avantect® pancreatic and ovarian tests may identify cancers in high-risk patient populations earlier than conventional approaches, when patients may be more likely to benefit from treatment. The company’s multi-cancer detection test was recently selected as one of two blood-based technologies for the National Cancer Institute’s Vanguard Study. ClearNote Health’s headquarters and CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited, and New York State Department of Health-approved laboratory are located in San Diego.
