NEW YORK — Oncore Pharma said today that it has partnered with Dutch medical testing firm BodyCheck to commercialize the ColonSentry colorectal cancer test in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in a deal valued at $61.8 million.
ColonSentry is a blood-based test designed to evaluate the expression of seven genes in order to determine an individual's current risk for colorectal cancer relative to an average risk population. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Oncore acquired the rights to commercialize the test in all countries outside the US and Canada from StageZero Life Sciences — formerly GeneNews — earlier this year.
According to Oncore, BodyCheck will launch the test in the three countries during the first six months of the deal. BodyCheck has also agreed to sell a minimum of 275,000 tests, which will be processed by StageZero at its Virginia-based lab, translating to roughly $61.8 million in revenues to Oncore.
Additional terms were not disclosed.
"This is an important initial start for us in Europe," Oncore President and CEO Martin Verronneau said in a statement. "The signature of this first agreement less than four months after our partnership with StageZero Life Sciences is putting us ahead of schedule in creating sustainable value for our shareholders."