NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Cypher Genomics has signed a co-promotion agreement with Illumina that lets the sequencing vendor offer Cypher's Coral biomarker discovery service to pharmaceutical companies.
Specifically, under the terms of the agreement, Illumina's sales force will market Coral as part of a solution to pharma that includes sequencing and its NextBio platform for data analytics and storage. Pharma firms could, for example, use the service to analyze small groups of patients in early clinical trials to discover genetic markers that are linked to therapeutic response.
In a statement, Nick Naclerio, Illumina's senior vice president for corporate development and general manager for enterprise informatics, described Cypher's biomarker discovery service is "a perfect complement" to Illumina's offerings.
The combined offering will enable pharma companies to accelerate "their personalized drug development efforts and … ultimately help deliver on the promise of precision medicine," Adam Simpson, Cypher's president and chief operating officer, added.
Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.