UK-based startup Population Genetics Technologies and biopharmaceutical services company Quintiles are collaborating to offer large-scale genomic analyses for clinical trials.
Under the non-exclusive collaboration, the partners will "jointly identify opportunities" to apply genomic analyses in hundreds to thousands of samples to test clinical hypotheses and to correlate biomarkers of disease prognosis and drug response.
PopGenTech will use its technology, a recently published tagging method that allows it to sequence pools of samples and distinguish between true variants and errors introduced during sample prep (IS 5/10/2011).
The companies' first project will be a renal cancer clinical trial for an undisclosed Quintiles client. The partners aim to identify genetic markers that are predictive of adverse events and efficacy.
"PGT's technology combined with Quintiles' global presence can bring the benefits of large-scale sequencing and analysis to virtually all biopharmaceutical companies," said King Jolly, senior vice president of Quintiles Innovation, in a statement.