# Novelna sex-specific protein test

Source: https://onco.cc/drugs/novelna-protein-test/  
OnCo record `novelna-protein-test` (Treatment). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

An experimental blood test that reads a handful of proteins, with different panels for men and women, to find many early cancers; so far it has been tried only on a few hundred stored samples.

## Summary

In Novelna's discovery study (Budnik et al., BMJ Oncology 2024), plasma from 440 people, healthy or with 18 early-stage solid tumours, was profiled for more than 3,000 proteins. Ten-protein sex-specific panels reached areas under the curve of 0.98 in men and 0.983 in women and, at stage I and 99% specificity, identified 93% of cancers among men and 84% among women, with wide confidence intervals; 150-protein panels identified tissue of origin in more than 80% for most cancers. The company's website claims higher accuracy than existing tests without figures; trade press reports the company saying it could be made for under $100. No regulatory status, availability, price or registered trial was found.

## Fields

- Kind: Treatment
- Status: emerging
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Tags: test; mced; evidence:insufficient
- Brand: Novelna
- Modality: Multi-cancer blood test in development (plasma proteins, proximity extension assay)
- Mechanism: Two ten-protein detection panels, one for men and one for women, measured in plasma by proximity extension assay, with larger panels to predict the tissue of origin.

## Notes

- Evidence grade insufficient for the claim that taking this test reduces late-stage diagnosis or cancer deaths: no randomised trial of it has reported either outcome, and its published performance comes from case-control or single-arm studies. The only randomised result for any multi-cancer test, NHS-Galleri, did not show fewer stage III or IV cancers.
- Small discovery set: figures this high usually fall in independent validation.
- What a result means: a positive result is a reason for further tests, not a diagnosis; a negative result does not rule cancer out and does not replace the screening tests that have been shown to work (bowel, breast, cervical and, where eligible, lung screening).

## Sources

- Budnik et al., BMJ Oncology 2024: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjonc-2023-000073

## Connected records

- technologies: [Liquid biopsy (ctDNA)](https://onco.cc/technologies/liquid-biopsy/), [Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)](https://onco.cc/technologies/mced/), [Proteomics & phosphoproteomics](https://onco.cc/technologies/proteomics/)
- companies: [Novelna](https://onco.cc/companies/novelna/)
- key papers: [Novel proteomics-based plasma test for early detection of multiple cancers in the general population](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-budnik-novelna-proteomics-bmj-oncol-2024/)

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