Grail says about 400 patients have been wrongly informed they may have cancer

(Reuters) – Cancer test maker Grail Inc said on Friday that its telemedicine provider had mistakenly sent letters to about 400 patients it suspected might have cancer.

Grail’s flagship blood test for cancer detection, Galleri, is designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear.

The company, which is owned by Illumina Inc., said the letters were erroneously sent by PWNHealth due to a software issue and that it was “in no way related to or caused by an incorrect Galleri test result.”

Grail said patients were contacted immediately after the incident, adding that no patient health information was disclosed or violated as a result.

The PWNHealth software problem has now been solved, it said.

Illumina is currently appealing regulatory orders in the US and EU asking the gene sequencing company to divest Grail after it skipped regulators to complete its acquisition of the cancer test maker.

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)