NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – DiaCarta said today it has signed an agreement making Arrow Diagnostics the sole distributor for the firm's ColoScape colorectal cancer test in Italy, San Marino, and Vatican City.
ColoScape is a CE-marked qPCR-based kit that uses DiaCarta's proprietary QClamp method — a technique that uses xenonucleic acid to "clamp," or silence, amplification of non-mutant DNA in heterogeneous samples — to detect 20 mutation markers from four oncogenes. The test requires as little as 20 ng of DNA from formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded tumor tissue, stool, or plasma samples. It runs on standard real-time PCR platforms and takes two-and-a-half hours.
"The partnership with DiaCarta will generate significant value for our customers," Arrow CEO Gianluigi Mascarino said in a statement. He noted that Arrow was "impressed" with DiaCarta's QClamp xenonucleic clamping technology as well as the company's "commitment to innovation," and believes the ColoScape test "will make a significant impact on colorectal cancer."
DiaCarta presented data last year supporting the use of the test as a liquid biopsy, and earlier this year the firm completed a Series B funding round, raising a total of $45 million.