August 6, 2024 – Sysmex Corporation (HQ: Kobe, Japan; President: Kaoru Asano) announces today that it has expanded its strategic Alliance Agreement with QIAGEN N.V. (HQ: Venlo, The Netherlands; CEO: Thierry Bernard) to deepen their collaboration in genetic testing, including research and development, production, clinical development, and sales-marketing.
Sysmex and QIAGEN have built a successful partnership since the initial collaboration back in 2013 and agreed to expand it to include a strategic alliance for companion diagnostics1 in 2021. As part of the newly expanded collaboration, both companies will further combine their respective products and strengths in genetic testing to deliver high-value products to their global customers.
Sysmex will implement QIAGEN’s assay to be used for clinical trials that QIAGEN provides to pharmaceutical companies and research institutions at Sysmex’s global network laboratories (Sysmex Inostics, Inc. CLIA lab2, Sysmex Research and Development Center and Sysmex affiliated company, RIKEN GENESIS Co., Ltd. (HQ: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Kenji Iwakabe) and support QIAGEN’s global services.
For more than 50 years, Sysmex has enhanced its global presence within the in vitro diagnostics field by evolving its genetic testing portfolio. One of the ways is by bringing personalized medicine to patients and healthcare professionals through product development using liquid biopsy3 technology. Sysmex has built a global sales and services network that utilizes its world-class laboratories in Japan and the United States. Sysmex intends to accelerate the creation of high-value testing and develop diagnostic technologies further.
QIAGEN is a pioneer in precision medicine4 and the leader in collaborating with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to develop companion diagnostics. These can detect genetic abnormalities to provide insights that guide clinical decision-making about treatments. From polymerase chain reaction (PCR), multiplex PCR, digital PCR (dPCR)5 to next-generation sequencing (NGS)6, QIAGEN offers an unmatched breadth of technologies, which means it can tailor products to the needs of pharmaceutical companies. The company has master collaboration agreements to develop and commercialize companion diagnostics with more than 30 global pharma companies worldwide.
Reference:
July 1, 2021 news release: “Sysmex Forms Strategic Alliance with QIAGEN for Providing Global
Cancer Companion Diagnostics that Uses Ultra-sensitive Liquid Biopsy NGS Technology”
https://www.sysmex.co.jp/en/news/2021/pdf/210701.pdf
Terminology:
Companion diagnostics:
Test to predict the efficacy or risk of side effects of specific drugs before prescription.
CLIA lab:
A laboratory certified under the US Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA). Certified laboratories are required to maintain quality through regular inspections, etc., and this guarantees quality control in testing.
Liquid biopsy:
A type of biopsy based mainly on the blood. It is designed to impose less burden on the patient, while having the performance equivalent to that of a conventional biopsy collected from solid tissue, such as a tumor dissection. It will become possible to frequently test genes derived from cancer tissue.
Precision medicine:
A medical approach that selects the most effective and safest treatment based on the characteristics of each individual patient’s genes, environment, lifestyle, etc. Also translated as “cancer genomic medicine,” it refers to “personalized medicine” suited to the patient’s constitution and condition based on an individual’s “genomic information” measured by next-generation sequencing, etc.
Digital PCR (dPCR):
A highly sensitive genetic testing technology that is expected to find applications to detect cancer and other genes within the blood.
Next generation sequencing (NGS):
Analysis technology that simultaneously and parallelly reads and analyzes massive volumes of genetic information containing DNA bases and sequences.
The purpose of this news release is to communicate our business activities to our stakeholders. It may or may not include information about Sysmex’s products or their research and development, but this is not intended for promotion, advertising or medical advice. The information contained in this news release is current as of the date of the announcement but may be subject to change without prior notice.