NEW YORK – Personalis and Tempus Labs announced on Tuesday that they inked a strategic collaboration to jointly commercialize Personalis' NeXT Personal Dx minimal residual disease assay.
Under the agreement, Tempus will integrate the tumor-informed, whole-genome liquid biopsy assay into its testing menu and market it to oncologists while also paying Personalis up to $12 million in milestone payments to help fund the lab-developed test's clinical evidence development.
Personalis, meanwhile, will compensate Tempus for the fair market value of sales, marketing, order requisition, and results delivery services and will provide Tempus with warrants to purchase up to approximately 9.2 million shares of Personalis' common stock over the next 24 months.
Additionally, Personalis will receive, process, and bill any tests that are ordered; drive reimbursement; and complete clinical validation work in breast cancer and immunotherapy monitoring.
The two companies will initially focus their efforts on MRD testing in lung cancer until the test has been clinically validated in the other two indications.
"A core part of our 'Win in MRD' strategy has been to partner with a top oncology testing company with a leading sales channel to co-commercialize NeXT Personal Dx," Chris Hall, president and CEO of Personalis, said in a statement.
The NeXT Personal Dx assay allows patient-personalized ctDNA panels of up to 1,800 variants with a resolution of approximately 1 part per million. Personalis announced an early-access program for the test focused on lung cancer, breast cancer, and immunotherapy response monitoring last month.
Tempus also recently partnered with CureMD Healthcare to integrate cancer genomic test workflows into the healthcare provider's electronic health records system.