NEW YORK ─ ArcherDx and Premier said today that they have signed a two-part agreement that kicks off a multiyear program to deliver personalized genomic testing to patients.
The goal of the partnership is to help mitigate underutilization of targeted therapies in late-stage cancer patients, ArcherDx said.
As part of the agreement, Premier Applied Sciences will identify eight to 10 of its member institutions to implement the ArcherDx Stratafide test, in a research-use-only capacity and as part of a retrospective study, to evaluate its sequencing performance in comparison to other diagnostic tests.
Financial and other terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
ArcherDx and Premier's research team will identify retrospective samples from patients with lung, thyroid, and colorectal cancer to be analyzed by Archer Clinical Services. In the study, the firms aim to evaluate Stratafide as a composite test to identify genomic alterations associated with cancer. Further, the companies intend to understand best practices to implement and utilize a distributed IVD in community hospital settings that may currently lack advanced molecular genomics tools.
Boulder, Colorado-based ArcherDX said it anticipates seeking clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration for Stratafide as a genomic sequencing in vitro diagnostic cancer assay that analyzes tissue and blood samples.
ArcherDX CEO and Cofounder Jason Myers said in a statement that "there remains a stark need for a kitted IVD solution designed for broader use in any hospital's molecular diagnostic laboratory."
He noted that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Premier serves "more than 4,000 US hospitals and health systems and approximately 175,000 other providers." Premier offers its members group purchasing benefits, consulting services, and advocacy and lobbying, among other services, while Premier Applied Sciences has developed a massive database over the past couple of decades of patient encounters with the aim of improving healthcare quality and lowering costs.
In January, ArcherDX said it had inked a non-exclusive, multiyear partnership with Illumina to broaden access to next-generation sequencing oncology testing.