NEW YORK — C2i Genomics said on Thursday that it has acquired CLIA-certified sequencing lab QNA Dx in an effort to speed the commercialization of its MRDetect cancer monitoring platform.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. C2i said that it will retain all of QNA's employees and continue its lab operations.
MRDetect is designed to track cancer recurrence and treatment response by analyzing the whole genome of a tumor using a resected tissue sample for genetic patterns that can be compared with mutation signatures in circulating tumor DNA obtained through periodic liquid biopsies.
According to C2i, the acquisition of Boston-based QNA will help it scale its cancer sample processing capacity and allow it to offer centralized lab services, providing clinicians with potential avenue to reimbursement for MRDetect as a laboratory-developed test.
"In the past six to 12 months, we've seen early adopters using the C2i cancer detection platform as a clinical research tool in diagnostic labs across the US, EU, and Singapore," C2i Cofounder and CEO Asaf Zviran said in a statement. "Still, our principal motivation remains to transform patient care and take the technology to the clinic. In this expansion, we essentially bought our customer to accelerate our pathway towards reimbursement."
Last year, C2i kicked off plans for retrospective and prospective validation trials of MRDetect in partnership with clinical centers in the US and internationally. Around that same time, the New York City-based company closed a $12 million Series A financing round.