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Mayo, Advanced Biological Laboratories to Develop NGS Diagnostics

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Mayo Medical Laboratories will collaborate with Advanced Biological Laboratories to develop a next-generation sequencing pipeline for laboratory-developed diagnostic tests.

Under the terms of agreement, the Mayo Clinic Division of Clinical Microbiology will select the clinical samples on which the tests will be validated, while ABL will lead development of information technology. ABL is a Luxembourg-based medical data technology company that develops information technology and health solutions for patient management and sequencing data analysis.

The Mayo Clinic will also receive access to a range of ABL's virology products for genotyping data analysis, including the ViroScore Suite for genotype interpretation of drug resistance in HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, as well as the DeepChek NGS-based genotyping assay. Those products are for research use only in the US. ABL also has an upcoming data processing module that will be a US Food and Drug Administration-registered class I medical device.

"Properly validated and characterized laboratory-developed tests offer valuable direction to clinicians and virologists," ABL CEO Chalom Sayada said in a statement. "They guide the selection of optimal treatments and diagnostic monitoring for patients suffering from genetically variable virological diseases of either an acute or chronic nature. When developed in a timely manner, these tests can be crucial to improved clinical outcomes and decreases in treatment failures, adverse events, and healthcare costs."

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