NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Qiagen has signed a co-marketing deal in China with KingMed Diagnostics aimed at expanding access to its digene HPV test.
KingMed is China's largest independent laboratory network, according to Qiagen, and under the agreement will serve as a centralized lab. This will allow smaller hospitals and those in less-populated areas to offer the HPV test and send samples to KingMed for processing and analysis.
Victor Shi, Asia Pacific president of Qiagen, said in a statement that the agreement will bring the test to regions where it is most needed. "Qiagen and KingMed Diagnostics have had a long and fruitful collaboration which we are now significantly expanding," he added.
Qiagen said the digene HPV test was first registered in China in 2000 and is widely available in the country.
It also noted that in recognition of International Women's Day today it would donate HPV tests for the screening of several thousand underprivileged women across China.