NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Agena Bioscience announced today that it has partnered with DaRui Biotechnology to develop a menu of in vitro diagnostic tests for cancer and inherited diseases for the Chinese market.
Under the deal, the companies will jointly develop and commercialize targeted, multiplex tests based on Agena's MassArray system, a mass spectrometry-based platform for measuring genetic variants that Agena acquired from Sequenom in 2014. DaRui will be responsible for securing regulatory approval for the tests, including conducting all the requisite clinical studies.
The firms did not disclose the specific diseases they would focus on, but said that the indications would be geared toward the needs of the Chinese market.
"The China market is a significant opportunity for Agena Bioscience, representing twenty percent of our global business," Agena CEO Pete Dansky said in a statement. "This past year, we established a subsidiary office in Shanghai and grew more than fifty percent in revenue. To further our efforts, we sought a strategic partner with extensive expertise in the clinical diagnostics market."
Agena's deal with DaRui comes just about three months after the firm signed an agreement with Diatech Pharmacogenomics to commercialize MassArray-based in vitro cancer diagnostics in Europe.