NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – IntegraGen and French oncology center Gustave Roussy today announced the creation of a high-throughput, large-scale sequencing platform that is anticipated to direct patients enrolled in personalized medicine studies to the most appropriate therapies.
IntegraGen will install and operate the platform on behalf of Gustave Roussy, beginning in the second quarter of 2014. Both whole-exome and RNA sequencing will be conducted at the clinical sequencing unit, the partners said, adding that the research will allow for the investigation, without a priori hypothesis, of a patient's tumor "within the framework of personalized medicine programs developed by Gustave Roussy," possibly resulting in individualized therapeutic intervention.
Based in France, IntegraGen develops and commercializes molecular diagnostic tests directed at autism and oncology.
Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
In a statement, Eric Solary, head of research at Gustave Roussy, said that since 2010 patients enrolled in its personalized medicine program have received personalized therapies, "thanks to the sequencing of a few tens of tumor genes. From now on we will have access to the sequence and the expression of all coding genes of each patient's tumor.
"By doing so, we can actively participate in the implementation of [France's new anti-cancer initiative], with one of its objectives being to develop the use of the tumor exome within clinical research projects," Solary added. "This information will allow us in the future to better predict responses to treatments and avoid useless or even counterproductive therapies"