What we validated
Biomarker quality — whether a program enrolls by a genomic-grade molecular alteration — is the drug-specific signal that held. On a held-out NSCLC cohort (N=85) it added 5.2 percentage points of AUC over the engine's structural baseline, and it is scored in the production engine today. The genomic-validated cohort odds ratio (5.59) ran well above the decade-old literature anchor (1.35); we ship the conservative anchor and disclose the overshoot rather than overfit to our own cohort.
What we tested and retired
We also tested early-phase objective response rate (ORR) magnitude — a signal several incumbents market as predictive. It did not clear our bar, and we never shipped it. A joint biomarker×ORR model beat biomarker-quality alone by only 0.5 points of AUC (not statistically distinguishable, p=0.48), and the test is unpowerable at any cohort we can assemble: detecting a 3-point gain would take roughly 830 drugs. The drugs with extractable early-phase ORR are overwhelmingly the genomic-validated successes biomarker quality already identifies, and failures rarely report it — so ORR carries little independent signal. We publish the negative result in full; the analysis and its inputs are detailed in the full report.
Scope & honesty
The biomarker-quality verdict is evidenced on NSCLC; its generalization to other solid tumors is under active validation and will be published as it completes. This is a transparent methods evaluation, not a peer-reviewed paper.