NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Biocartis today announced it is developing a workflow for extracting, amplifying, and detecting tumor DNA on its diagnostic platforms in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Philips Research.
The test, the Swiss molecular diagnostics firm said, could lead to better clinical care and improved quality of life for patients by enabling drugs to be targeted specifically to those patients who demonstrate meaningful response to the drugs.
Under the terms of the deal, Biocartis retains its full IP rights and will have access to IP resulting from the collaboration. Financial and other terms were not disclosed.
The system under development will use disposable, microfluidic cartridges with digitally encoded microparticles for the detection of multiple DNA samples, Patrick van den Bogaard, director of life science research at Biocartis, said.
"The test aims to be highly specific and sensitive, being able to isolate and detect just a few molecules of tumor DNA per [milliliter] of blood. To implement such tests in a real-world healthcare system requires development of fully automated, high multiplexing diagnostic instruments and technology which is the core focus of Biocartis," van den Bogaard said in a statement.