NEW YORK — Singaporean diagnostics firm Biolidics said today that it will collaborate with China's Hangzhou Normal University on the validation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), harvested using company technology, as lung cancer biomarkers.
Biolidics — formerly Clearbridge BioMedics — has developed a microfluidic system called ClearCell FX1 for isolating and enriching wholly intact, viable CTCs from blood. The partners will use the technology to validate the clinical utility of CTCs as biomarkers for measuring the response of late-stage lung cancer patients to an undisclosed drug combination.
Biolidics said that the work, which is set to run from this month to the end of 2021 at 22 participating hospitals across China, could lay the groundwork for its technology's use in companion diagnostics, as well as accelerate sales of the ClearCell FX system and related CTChip FR1 microfluidic biochip.
About a year ago, Biolidics signed a ClearCell FX1 distribution and development deal in China with Hunan Agen Medicine Laboratory Technology, which recently began providing laboratory developed test services using the system to Hunan Cancer Hospital.