NEW YORK – Transplant diagnostics firm CareDx and precision metagenomics company IDbyDNA said on Thursday that they've formed an exclusive partnership to develop metagenomic infectious disease testing specific to transplant patients.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The companies will develop and commercialize AlloID, an infectious disease test tailored to organ transplant donors and recipients that identifies more than 100 pathogens, as well as drug resistance in viruses and bacteria. IDbyDNA's precision metagenomics approach uses next-generation sequencing technology, is highly scalable, and is highly accurate at analyzing the genetic makeup of individual pathogen strains for improved detection, the partners said. Eventually, they also plan to combine AlloID with CareDx's AlloSure and AlloMap organ transplant rejection diagnostic tests to create a holistic test for clinicians.
"CareDx is 100 percent dedicated to the transplant field," CareDx CEO Reg Seeto said in a statement. "We believe our partnership with IDbyDNA can improve the standard of care for transplant patients with the ability to test and monitor for greater than 100 infectious disease pathogens. This will add to CareDx's multi-modality approach with transplant surveillance."
IDbyDNA Founder and CEO Guochun Liao also noted that better testing products are especially important for organ transplant patients, who are highly immunocompromised.