Aravindan Vasudevan, Co Founder and Director at Actorius Innovations and Research Pvt Ltd, shared on LinkedIn:
“What if a $1,000 diagnostic test could save a cancer patient $10,000 in treatment costs?
That is the powerful question Prof. Klaus Pantel raised in a recent conversation with Vikas Dandekar, Editor – Pharma and Healthcare, The Economic Times.
Our mentors, Prof. Klaus Pantel and Prof. Catherine Alix-Panabières, two pioneering scientists who introduced the term Liquid Biopsy in 2010, spoke to The Economic Times on the sidelines of Cancer in Motion 2026, a scientific symposium organised by Actorius Innovations and Research at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer(ACTREC), Mumbai.
Their conversation went beyond the science of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA). It addressed something equally important: the economics of cancer care.
Cancer treatment is becoming increasingly sophisticated, but also increasingly expensive. The real opportunity for precision oncology is not merely to identify more mutations or develop more sensitive tests. It is to help clinicians make better treatment decisions, avoid ineffective therapies and improve patient outcomes.
As Prof. Pantel illustrated, a diagnostic test costing $1,000 could potentially prevent $10,000 in unnecessary treatment expenditure.
Prof. Alix-Panabières also emphasised the importance of translating scientific discoveries into meaningful clinical benefits through robust interventional studies.
For us at Actorius, having these two extraordinary scientists as mentors is both a privilege and a responsibility.
Their pioneering work laid the foundations of an entire scientific discipline. Their continued guidance inspires our efforts to develop indigenous liquid biopsy technologies that can make precision oncology more accessible and clinically meaningful.
The future of cancer diagnostics should not be measured only by what we can detect, but by what we can help clinicians decide.
My sincere thanks to Vikas Dandekar and The Economic Times for bringing this important conversation to a wider audience.
Read the full interview.”
You can also read: Expert Discussion at COGC 2026: Who Should Carry the Cost of Cancer Care?
