The Belgian innovative molecular diagnostics company, Biocartis, earlier this week inked a deal with EPTL, the commercialization arm of Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology, and Research — to develop molecular diagnostic assays, including one for breast cancer.
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women worldwide and is the largest segment of the cancer diagnostics market- expected to account for USD 13.1bn by 2020. However, the current diagnostic tools comprise complex and lengthy workflows, involving numerous manual steps and visual interpretation of results. Consequently, specificity and reproducibility of these test methods are challenging with the regular occurrence of false positive and negative test results. Also, as today’s methods require specific laboratory expertise, samples will need to be shipped for analyses, and this often takes a long time before results are available.
Therefore, this five-year partnership is aimed at developing a PCR assay for breast cancer detection running on Biocartis’ diagnostic Idylla platform, and each partner will co-invest in the development of jointly selected tests.
Biocartis will be responsible for commercializing the tests under its own label, while ETPL will act as a development partner through Singapore’s Diagnostics Development Hub.
This first assay selected for development under the
The arrangement is an extension of a mid-2015 agreement between Biocartis and ETPL under which the partners evaluated various biomarkers with the goal of developing diagnostics for the Idylla platform.
Being Biocartis’ second assay in the breast cancer segment and an important addition to Biocartis’ list of tests lined up to focus on melanoma, lung and colorectal cancer, the assay definitely has potential to enable fast and robust results and make a real difference with current testing methods.
