NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – HTG Molecular Diagnostics said on Tuesday that it has signed a master new collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, complementing an existing companion diagnostic agreement between the two companies.
The collaboration deal extends HTG's work with Merck beyond the two firms' initial CDx agreement, which was focused on the drugmaker's investigational Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor M7583, and into earlier research stages of Merck's drug programs. This will include a custom assay development program that HTG President and CEO T.J. Johnson said has already begun.
The custom profiling assay, designed for use on HTG EdgeSeq instruments, is intended to support biomarker research for six indications within Merck's drug development pipeline, HTG said.
The agreement also includes a statement of work specific to EMD Serono, Merck KGaA's biopharma business arm in the US and Canada.
In addition to the Merck agreements, HTG also announced a custom assay development deal with Daiichi Sankyo recently, and has been working under a master collaboration with Qiagen to combine the two firm's technologies and commercial strengths to attract new pharma customers.