CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
August 2016—Qiagen has entered into a licensing and co-development agreement with Munich-based Therawis Diagnostics to develop and commercialize predictive assays in oncology. An initial project will be to develop and market PITX2 as a marker to predict the effectiveness of anthracycline treatment in triple-negative and other high-risk breast cancer patients. The PITX2 test potentially could enable clinicians to make decisions on whether to use standard drugs or provide other treatments to patients who are unlikely to benefit from anthracycline-based chemotherapy. The PITX2 biomarker also has potential value for a companion diagnostic to guide the use of novel targeted therapies under development.
In a separate announcement, Qiagen has formed a global consortium of international lung cancer experts who will advise the company on the design of new next-generation sequencing gene panels and associated workflows that target lung-cancer-specific mutations.
The members of the consortium will work with a Qiagen team to guide selection of the genes and variants for the panels, development of the NGS workflows, and verification of the panels and workflows. From the work of the consortium, Qiagen will deliver a series of sample-to-insight lung cancer NGS panel workflows for use with both tissue and liquid biopsy samples on the company’s GeneReader NGS System.
Qiagen, 240-686-7700