NEW YORK – Canadian-Chinese genomics firm Geneseeq said Tuesday that it has partnered with Hospital de Base in Sao José do Rio Preto, Brazil, to build a next-gen sequencing-based precision oncology diagnostic lab that will allow the hospital to offer in-house clinical testing to patients in the region and to advance clinical research.
Under the terms of the agreement, Geneseeq, which has headquarters in Toronto and Nanjing, will jointly build a new lab with the Brazilian hospital and will help it establish a variety of the firm’s genomic profiling tests, including its comprehensive pan-cancer gene panels and several cancer type-specific gene panels.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Geneseeq's comprehensive panel, GeneseeqPrime, analyzes 437 cancer-related genes, reporting multi-gene signatures like microsatellite instability and tumor mutation burden in addition to specific alterations. The company's GeneseeqPrime HRD, which adds homologous recombination deficiency scoring to inform the use of PARP inhibitors, is also part of the deal, as are tumor-specific panels for lung, breast, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancer.
According to Geneseeq, the agreement reflects a wider strategy to work with domestic and international hospitals to improve access to advanced NGS technologies. The company said it has implemented this model at more than 100 partner hospitals thus far.
"NGS-based comprehensive testing is being increasingly used in cancer centers globally, and the conversations around in-house testing are more prevalent than ever, especially since the pandemic affected logistics and overall turnaround time at central testing labs," Xue Wu, CEO of Geneseeq's Canada division, said in a statement.
"We believe that this new partnership will create a whole new level of capacity in our lab that ultimately will give us much better care for our patients," added Hospital de Base Laboratory Director Mauricio Nogueira.