NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Holzgerlingen, Germany-based Curetis said today that it has entered into an exclusive long-term strategic distribution partnership with A. Menarini Diagnostics.
Under the agreement, Florence, Italy-based Menarini will immediately begin distributing Curetis' products in Germany, France, Benelux, the UK, and Switzerland, markets to which Curetis had previously sold directly. From the second quarter, Menarini will be the exclusive distributor of Curetis' products in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, where local companies have been distributors.
Menarini will also begin commercializing the Curetis Unyvero cartridge-based multiplex PCR molecular diagnostics platform in Sweden, and the firms are discussing potential future expansion of the partnership for distribution of the system in other international territories.
Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The Unyvero system is used to rapidly detect pathogens and antimicrobial resistance markers in a range of infectious disease indications with results available in hours. It is marketed in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the US.
The firms said that Menarini will exclusively market and sell the system through its national country organizations and utilize its combined sales, customer service, marketing, scientific affairs, and operations support team staff for the commercialization of Curetis' Unyvero product line.
The parties are exploring ways to further expand their overall collaboration and have entered a 90-day period of exclusive negotiations in oncology and in certain key territories — including Europe, the Middle East, and Africa — for a license to Curetis' Unyvero A30 RQ Platform, a mid-plex system currently in development for providing rapid quantitative results for a select host of targets.
Oliver Schacht, CEO of Curetis, said in a statement that entering into the strategic distribution partnership forms a key element of its new corporate strategy.
"With Menarini Diagnostics as our partner, we will see more commercial resources being deployed behind Unyvero than would have been possible with Curetis' own resources in many countries," he said.
The firms said that they will launch the partnership at the 29th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, which will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands from April 13 to 16.