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Flagship Bio, ACD Collaborate on use of RNA Biomarker Technology for Clinical Trials

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Flagship Biosciences today said it is collaborating with Advanced Cell Diagnostics for the use of its RNAscope technology. 

Flagship said it is using ACD's technology to support ongoing CLIA-based clinical trials of its clients. Steve Potts, vice president of sales and marketing for Westminster, Colo.-based Flagship, told GenomeWeb in an email that his firm is using RNAscope and customizing and optimizing the technology for use in trials with "several large" undisclosed pharmaceutical clients. 

He added that upon optimizing and validating RNAscope for a CLIA environment, Flagship will apply its tissue image analysis technology to quantify the messenger RNA expression in spatial relationship to the expressing cells. The company's image analysis algorithms determine the types of cells and "can quantify expression on a cell-by-cell basis," Potts said. Flagship and ACD are working on plans to develop companion diagnostics, he continued. 

Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

RNAscope is an automated multiplex chromogenic and fluorescent in situ hybridization platform for detecting and quantifying RNA biomarkers at single-molecule sensitivity. 

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