Talk:Foundation Medicine

Expanding and updating the article

Hi there. I’m an employee of Foundation Medicine who is interested in improving this page. I understand that my job creates a conflict of interest, so in lieu of editing myself, I’m posting here to find another editor to help. I’ve also posted the required disclosure at the top of the page—let me know if you have questions about my intentions/efforts here.

I’ve already drafted an updated article for consideration—take a look here. Ideally, I’d like someone to review what I’m proposing, give feedback, and, once the draft is in good shape, move the new material to the live article.

My main goal is to provide more detail about the company’s history and products, since there is quite a bit of information out there about the company that is not currently reflected in this entry.

I made sure to familiarize myself with Wikipedia's content policies before writing and I tried to maintain a neutral point of view and use only verifiable, published sources. If there are are areas where editors think I can improve, please let me know. In particular, I’d love to help making sure scientific concepts related to Foundation Medicine’s offerings are stated as simply as possible while remaining thorough and accurate.

I’m very open to collaboration and excited to work with the community to contribute to the project. Thanks in advance for your help! Fmidan (talk) 20:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply 09-FEB-2018

Here are seven tips to start out with.

1. There needs to be a clear delineation between the company Foundation Medicine and their product, Foundation One. As it stands now, the article makes mere mention of the product. The draft version expands this coverage exponentially. Despite however counterintuitive it sounds, the article's focus should be on the company itself, and not its products. There should be, in one sense, the company-only page. Then, in another sense (if necessary) you would have the product-only page, and the twain should never meet. If the products require their own page, this information ought to be placed in a draft version and sent to WP:AFC.
2. No less than half the draft version is information on products and partnerships. The company's own actions, taken irrespective of developments with either its products or its partnerships, should be the focus here. Any partnerships, like the products mentioned in point no 1, should be given only a minimal summary. More on that in point 3.
3. Merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. An article should not become a complete exposition of all possible details, but rather, a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements, like the ones in your draft, are always judged according to the reference's appropriate weight. This means that references are judged on their individual contributions to the article, and whether or not those contributions are necessary.
4. I would discourage the use of Forbes as a reference.
5. In journal articles where more than 3 authors are listed, the use of et al. is suggested.
6. Journals given as references with page ranges rather than one specific page number. The page numbers where information is to be found should always be communicated first and foremost. The page range parameter in citation templates is rarely used or required in Wikipedia, and when they are, it's usually because the page itself was not given.
7. As the company is majority owned by Hoffman-La Roche, it might be a good idea to differentiate in the article how Foundation Health continues to be distinct from its parent organization.
8. When you're ready, please be sure to change the template's answer parameter from yes to no. This will notify editors that you and your draft version are both ready to proceed.

Spintendo ᔦᔭ 02:44, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

References

Thank you so much for the thorough review and guidance, Spintendo. Before I revise the draft, I have a few follow-up questions and thoughts that I’d love to get your responses to:

• The company has several products, not just Foundation One, which is why I felt the expansion was necessary. How would you feel about just trimming the description of each product to just a sentence or two?
• The company’s actions have primarily centered around product development and partnerships. Does this mean you’d like this article to only be a History section? Or would it work to simply streamline the information in those sections a bit?
• I can change the journal citations—thanks for the feedback. I just used a generator I found linked on the Help:Citation_tools page.
• Are there specific details or references that you take issue with?
• Is there a reason you discourage ‘’’Forbes’’’ as a source?

Thanks! Fmidan (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply 28-FEB-2018

1. Trimming the product description to one or two sentences (depending on the length of each sentence) is the way to go. It's good to keep in mind that these should be summarized descriptions of what the products are, not detailed recountings of their development, developers, or other trivial matters such as patient usage statistics or the like.
2. If the company partnerships are varied and numerous, they may be mentioned through the use of a cladogram, which is used specifically to describe relationships.
3. Some of Forbes' authors are professionally vetted and, in some cases, may have credentials that allow the specific author to qualify under the self-published source criteria (established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications). That being said, much of Forbes content also contains articles by paid contributors, similar to a content farm. In the end, much of Forbes' reliability comes down to using only particular authors from them, and never using them for things such as third-party citations on statements regarding living people, for example.
4. As far as references, I and other editors would have problems with source's connected to the company, such as itself or its partners. Publications which cater to the biologics/pharmaceuticals industry (MedTech Boston, MedCityNews, HemOnc, Genome Web, GEN, etc.) are also to be avoided, as are publications which cater only to the business industry (Boston Business Journal, Forbes, 4-Traders) since the readership for those publications is mightily different than Wikipedia's, which are broader and more generalized. Pieces written in those publications also tend to originate from the company itself, with little to no fact checking done from the outside.

Regards, Spintendo      01:26, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

New thread for updated draft review--plus infobox request

Hi there!

After submitting an article draft earlier this year and receiving great feedback, I've reworked my draft (trimming info, updating sources and citations, moving sections to make it easier for readers to understand what Foundation Medicine does) and I'm posting here to see if an editor can review. Also during this time, the company has had some major news (acquisition by Roche, CMS approval of FoundationOne CDX) that I included in this update. See above for background on my first draft.

Updated draft is here.

For those new to this page, I am an employee of the company, so I'm putting forth these updates for others to make if they think they're an improvement. In following the COI guidelines, I won't directly edit the article.

If the draft still needs some work, would it be possible for an editor to update the infobox in the meantime? In particular, some of the key staff listed are no longer with the company, we have more employees, and the products are different. Updates are in the collapse box (and in my draft).

infobox

Foundation Medicine, Inc.

Headquarters	Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States
Key people	Troy Cox (CEO) Jason Ryan (CFO) Tom Civik (CCO) Vincent Miller, M.D. (CMO) Melanie Nallicheri (CBO)
Products	FoundationOne FoundationOneHeme FoundationACT FoundationOne CDx Foundation Insights FoundationSmartTrials
Owners	Roche
Number of employees	501-1,000 (July 2018)
Website	Official website

References

I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this note. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks! Fmidan (talk) 15:34, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Reply 21-JUL-2018

Infobox changes partially implemented

1. Y The employee count was updated to 662 per the Bloomberg reference provided.
2. Y Four individuals were added to the infobox key people parameter.
3. N The 5th person was omitted per template guidance.
4. Additionally, a portion of the text from your draft is insufficiently paraphrased from the source material, and should be rewritten in your own words or omitted. A description of the problem passage is shown here When ready to proceed with your draft, kindly open a new edit request.

Regards,  spintendo  20:42, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for making that update Spintendo! I didn't realize that only four employees could be in the infobox. Do you think it makes more sense to keep Melanie Nallicheri (CBO) over Jason Ryan (CFO)? Just thinking that Melanie's role is more public-facing.

I've also updated the text you highlighted--some of the phrases couldn't be reworded because they're the official names of the organizations (they're just very long), but I took a stab at revising the paragraph overall.

Thanks again for all your help with everything and your patience with me. Fmidan (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Update

Opening a new edit request per instruction above. My article draft has been updated according to feedback and is ready for additional notes. Editors can review it here.

Restating for anyone just joining the conversation: I have a COI, so I won't edit the article. I'm just interested in helping improve the company's entry based on available sources and according to Wikipedia guidelines. Hoping others will find value in what I'm proposing and add it to the article. Thanks! Fmidan (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Reply 01-AUG-2018

 Edit request declined  

1. Text from your proposal is insufficiently paraphrased from the source material. This concern was noted in the previous review, but only a cursory change of wording was made. These passages need to be placed in your own words, using your own phrasing.
2. I have placed Ms. Nallicheri in the infobox.  spintendo  22:37, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Comparison of texts

Text as it appears in the proposed Edit Request

Text as it appears in the Source Material

FoundationOne is a comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) assay for solid tumors...that incorporates multiple companion diagnostics. It includes companion diagnostic indications for five tumor types: ovarian, lung, breast, colorectal, and melanoma that can help match patients to 17 targeted therapies. The company’s FoundationCore database contains more than 200,000 genomic profiles sourced from the results of the company’s assays, as well as data on over 150 cancer subtypes.

FoundationOne CDx is FDA-approved as a comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) assay for all solid tumors and a broad companion diagnostic for patients with certain types of non-small-cell lung cancer, melanoma, colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, or breast cancer to identify those patients who may benefit from treatment with one of 17 on-label targeted therapies. FoundationInsights is a secure web application pulling data from Foundation Medicine’s FoundationCore knowledge base, which according to the company includes more than 120,000 genomic profiles and data on more than 150 cancer subtypes.

References

Hi Spintendo,

The passage you linked to the first time is different than the one you pointed out above--I didn’t realize there was more than one problem section. Sorry about that.

I tried to rewrite the sections you pasted above, while also sticking to what the source says. Some of the wording matches are technical phrases “companion diagnostic” (which is where the CDx in the test name comes from) and “targeted therapy”, for instance. Would it help if things like “comprehensive genomic profiling” were put in quotes?

I’m used to writing about this in a specific way, so if you have suggestions for this language, please go ahead and change.

Using the tool you linked, I went through and corrected anything else that seemed too similar. The tool does pick up long proper names like “Food and Drug Administration” or common phrasing like “solid tumors”, so I think that’s where any issues are now coming from--but correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks, Fmidan (talk) 22:50, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Revisions for review

Hello! I’m starting a new request “ticket” to have an editor to review the latest iteration of a draft I’ve been working on for this article. That is located here.

I’d previously been working with Spintendo to make changes (you can see our conversations above), but I think he has been busy with other projects, so I'd appreciate it if anyone can weigh in who has time. As I’ve noted here and elsewhere, I have a conflict of interest, so I will not be editing the article directly.

I’m hoping this draft is in a better place than it was, but if editors still think it needs work, I’m wondering if there are smaller updates that can be made in the meantime. It just seems there’s enough information published about the company that more material can be added to expand the entry and give an overview about what Foundation Medicine does, how it came to be, how the tests are used, etc.

Happy to talk it out and eager to help improve this page.

Thanks, Fmidan (talk) 21:41, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Reply 04-SEP-2018

 Citation quote parameters requested  

1. With the large amount of information requested to be added, I'm going to ask that the citation template's |quote= parameter be utilized in order to better review the material.
2. In each case where a citation covers a claim statement, please enter the direct statement from the sourced material which verifies the claim statement under the citation template's |quote= parameter.
3. In instances where a particular citation is covering the placement of more than one note, please enter each citation separately by not using the duplicate ref markup <ref name=/> in order to ensure that the |quote= parameter contains only one quotation per entry. Once the review is completed, I will reformat all approved claim statements so that the references make use of the duplicate ref markup <ref name=/>.

I assure you that your request will be expedited as soon as these additional steps are taken. Thank you!  spintendo  00:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Spintendo. It took a bit to pull this together, but the draft has been updated with quotes in all the citations.

User:Fmidan/Draft

I didn't add quotes for the infobox or anything that's already in the article (the first two sentences, for instance), but everything else should have them. Some of the quotes are a bit lengthy, especially where I had to summarize large chunks of information. If you want to review section by section, I understand. Let me know which you want to start with.

Going through everything with a fine tooth comb actually helped me locate some better/more recent articles and clean things up a bit, so thanks for suggesting. I opened up this request edit again rather than start a new thread. I hope that's OK. I appreciate your ongoing help here. Thanks, Fmidan (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for making these changes, it's much appreciated. I will review your request forthwith.  spintendo  10:17, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Spintendo. Let me know if you have questions or feedback as you go. I have time today to make adjustments if needed, too. Fmidan (talk) 14:22, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Reply to edit request 14-SEP-2018

Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Please read the enclosed notes for information on each request.  spintendo  15:36, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Edit Request Review section 14-SEP-2018

Foundation Medicine, Inc. is a public American company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts which develops, manufactures, and sells genomic profiling assays based on next-generation sequencing technology for solid tumors, hematologic malignancies, and sarcomas.  Approved. ___________ The company also provides data and related services to pharmaceutical companies and researchers.  Declined. ___________ In addition to its Cambridge headquarters, the company has laboratory facilities in Penzberg, Germany and Morrisville, North Carolina.  Approved. ___________ Foundation Medicine’s products support personalized medicine and precision medicine and include genomic tests used to test solid tumors and blood-based cancers and sarcomas, as well as data services that are designed to help pharmaceutical companies develop and test new personalized medicines.  Approved. ___________ The company’s assays are used by clinicians and pharmaceutical companies to analyze cancer biomarkers in patient tumor samples.  Declined. ___________ Test results include an analysis of genomic alterations relevant to available cancer therapies, other genomic markers that may inform response to cancer immunotherapy, and potential targeted therapies, and/or clinical trial eligibility.  Declined. ___________ In the clinical setting, the tests are designed to help doctors match patients to these various treatment pathways.  Declined. ___________ Foundation Medicine’s technology and data offerings are intended to support biopharma clinical research and aimed at improving patient outcomes by aiding drug development and clinical trial design through molecular data insights.  Declined. ___________ foundationOne is a comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) test that is used in solid tumors. FoundationOneHeme is a CGP assay for hematologic cancers and sarcomas that employs both DNA and RNA sequencing. FoundationACT is a blood-based circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) assay for use with solid tumors. FoundationOne CDx is a CGP test that can be used with all solid tumors.  Approved with modifications. ___________ The company’s FoundationCore database contains more than 200,000 genomic profiles sourced from the results of the company’s assays. The database also includes information on 150 subtypes of cancer.  Approved. ___________ The data are used by the company to provide treatment information to clinicians and in partnerships with healthcare technology and pharmaceutical companies for use in research and clinical development.  Declined. ___________ Foundation Medicine was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was conceived after Broad Institute researchers Levi Garraway, M.D., Ph.D. and Matthew Meyerson, M.D., Ph.D. published a 2007 paper detailing an efficient method for large-panel testing of 238 DNA mutations.  Approved. ___________ Founding academic advisors from the Broad Institute, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and MIT, including Garraway, Meyerson, Eric Lander, Ph.D. and Todd Golub, M.D, laid the groundwork for the company over two years.  Declined. ___________ Foundation Medicine launched in 2010 with a $25 million Series A financing led by Third Rock Ventures.  Approved. ___________ Other early investors included Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Bill Gates.  Declined. ___________ Alexis Borisy served as the founding chief executive officer of the company. ? Clarification needed. ___________ He was succeeded by Michael Pellini in 2011.  Unable to implement. ___________ The company released its first commercial assay, or test, called FoundationOne in 2012.  Approved. ___________ Unlike first-generation genomic profiles of tumors, FoundationOne had the ability to test for genetic mutations in approximately 280 genes at once.  Declined. ___________ Results from the test’s validation were published in ‘’Nature Biotechnology’’ in 2013.  Declined. ___________ The company also began partnering with pharmaceutical companies to analyze patient samples.  Declined. ___________ The first such program was piloted with Novartis in 2011, and by 2018, the company had more than 30 partnerships.  Approved. ___________ Foundation Medicine launched its second test, a hematological biomarker assay called FoundationOneHeme, in 2013.  Approved. ___________ The company collaborated with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center researchers on the test, who validated the assay on approximately 400 patient samples and published the findings in ‘’Blood’’ in 2016.  Declined. ___________ The company held its initial public offering in August 2013. The following year, Priority Health in Michigan became the first healthcare plan in the United States to cover the company’s tests.  Approved. ___________ In 2015, Foundation Medicine reached a deal with Swiss holding company Roche that gave Roche a majority stake in the company.[52] In June, 2018, Roche announced it would acquire the outstanding shares of Foundation Medicine for $2.4 billion ($137 per share).  Approved. ___________ The company established the Precision Medicine Exchange Consortium (PMEC) in 2015, a data-sharing program designed to allow organizations to share de-identified and HIPAA compliant genomic information and treatment data for advanced research in the area of precision oncology. At launch, seven institutions were members of the exchange.  Declined. ___________ In 2016, using FoundationCore data, Foundation Medicine released anonymized records detailing genomic data on cancers from 18,000 adult patients to the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Genomic Data Commons (GDC) portal.  Approved. ___________ as part of the effort to facilitate and accelerate research in precision medicine under the National Cancer Moonshot and Precision Medicine Initiative created by the Obama administration.  Declined. ___________ The contribution was the largest such donation to the NCI and more than doubled the number of records available to the GDC.  Declined. ___________ In January 2017, Foundation Medicine appointed Troy Cox as chief executive officer to succeed Michael Pellini, who became chairman of the board.  Declined. ___________ In December 2017, the company’s assay FoundationOne CDx received approval from the FDA and a initial National Coverage Determination (NCD) from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).  Approved. ___________ In March 2018, CMS issued a coverage policy regarding next-generation sequencing (NGS) testing, including a final National Coverage Determination for FoundationOne CDx, enabling coverage for eligible Medicare and Medicare Advantage patients who receive the test.  Declined. ___________

Wow. I really appreciate all the time and effort you put in here, Spintendo. I need to spend time going through your notes and reasoning, but I wanted to thank you for making these edits right away. Thanks, Fmidan (talk) 16:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Edit Request

NOTE: I am proposing this edit for FleishmanHillard on behalf of Foundation Medicine. I am a paid editor and am aware of the COI guidelines. I am submitting this edit request to propose revisions to the article to correct inaccuracies on the page and provide additional information for potential inclusion. Please see below for proposed changes and related rationale/sourcing. Thank you for your consideration. Jon Gray (talk) 16:28, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Extended content

Infobox Individuals listed as Key People are no longer with Foundation Medicine. Former CEO Troy Cox was succeeded by current CEO Cindy Perettie; and former CFO Jason Ryan is now with Magenta Therapeutics. Former CCO Tom Civik and Former CBO Melanie Nallcheri also have departed the company. As updated, the correct list of key people would be as follows: Cindy Perettie (CEO) Brian Alexander (Chief Medical Officer) Priti Hedge (Chief Science Officer) Gaurav Singal (Chief Data Officer) General Information In the first sentence, Foundation Medicine is referred to as a public company; however, the company is no longer public following its acquisition by Roche. Suggest: Removing “public” from the first sentence to accurately reflect the company’s status. Foundation Medicine has a facility in Palo Alto, California. Suggest adding Palo Alto to the list of facility locations in the second paragraph, which would read as follows (suggested addition in bold): In addition to its Cambridge headquarters, the company has laboratory facilities in Penzberg, Germany, Boston's Seaport District, Morrisville, North Carolina and Palo Alto, California. History The second sentence of the fifth paragraph in the History section has a grammatical error (“a initial” should be “an initial”). Additional milestones in the company’s history, including a partnership announcement with Chugai Pharmaceuticals and regulatory approval for the FoundationOne CDx product are missing. We propose adding the following information to the bottom of the existing History section (suggested additions in bold): In March 2018, Foundation Medicine announced a partnership with Chugai Pharmaceuticals to lead commercial efforts for the company’s genomic profiling tests in [[[Japan]]. In December 2018, the company received regulatory approval for its genomic profiling test in Japan for solid tumors and a companion diagnostic for advanced cancer patients. In January 2019, the company announced Cindy Perettie was appointed chief executive officer. Clinical products The first bullet under the Clinical products subhead (beneath “Products”) contains a description of FoundationOne CDx. Suggest adding updated information on the approval of FoundationOne CDx as companion diagnostic for 18 FDA-approved therapies. With the proposed addition, the first bullet would read as follows (suggested addition in bold): FoundationOne CDx is a CGP test that can be used with all solid tumors and includes several companion diagnostics providing information for five tumor types: ovarian, lung, breast, colorectal, and melanoma.[21] As of October 2019, FoundationOne CDx was approved as a companion diagnostic for 18 FDA-approved targeted therapies. Technology and data services Suggest adding a second bullet to this section containing information on Foundation Medicine’s partnership with Flatiron Health to launch the companies’ joint research and development database (which also fleshes out more information about the FoundationCore database. Suggested addition in bold: In November 2016, Foundation Medicine and Flatiron Health launched the clinico-genomic database (CGDB) to generate real world data using genomic data from FoundationCore and clinical data from Flatiron for research and development of cancer treatments. References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jon Gray (talk • contribs) 16:28, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Reply 11-JAN-2020

Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Please read the enclosed notes within the proposal review section below for information on each request.  Spintendo  07:47, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal review 11-JAN-2020

Updated list of executives  Approved. the company is no longer public following its acquisition by Roche  Approved. In addition to its Cambridge headquarters, the company has laboratory facilities in Penzberg, Germany, Boston's Seaport District, Morrisville, North Carolina and Palo Alto, California.  Declined. The second sentence of the fifth paragraph in the History section has a grammatical error (“a initial” should be “an initial”).  Unable to implement. In March 2018, Foundation Medicine announced a partnership with Chugai Pharmaceuticals to lead commercial efforts for the company’s genomic profiling tests in Japan.  Declined. In December 2018, the company received regulatory approval for its genomic profiling test in Japan for solid tumors and a companion diagnostic for advanced cancer patients.  Declined. In January 2019, the company announced Cindy Perettie was appointed chief executive officer.  Approved. ___________

Forgot to add edit summary

In a recent edit, I forgot to use an edit summary. I have a COI with Roche and am disclosing that here since I forgot to include it (I'm aware the COI guidelines don't require disclosure on both my user page and here, but I'm doing for of transparency).

Furthermore, the text was copied from Guardant Health Sincerely, Novo Tape (She/Her)^{My Talk Page} 21:37, 7 November 2023 (UTC)