NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - Cepheid said today that it plans to use a family of human papillomavirus patents it has exclusively licensed from the Swedish company Quantovir to develop a PCR-based diagnostic test for HPV that will predict a woman’s risk for developing cervical cancer.
Ceppheid said the test, which will run on the GeneXpert system, will harness Quantovir's technology to create an HPV diagnostic that will measure HPV viral load. This capability, the company said, “may help to identify patients most at risk” of developing cervical cancer and will also make the test “unique among current HPV DNA testing products.”
Cepheid CEO John Bishop said in a statement that the company expects the HPV test to "provide accurate PCR results in minutes rather than days in a variety of clinical settings."
The estimated market for HPV diagnostic preventative testing may be between $600 million and $700 million, the company said.
Quantovir was founded in 2001, when it was spun out from the Genetics and Pathology department at Uppsala University.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.