Commercial-stage health company Agendia, which specializes in precision oncology for breast cancer, has announced the formation of a multi-year partnership with Illumina to collaborate on the development of in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests for oncological evaluations. The partnering companies intend to break new ground on the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for decentralized oncology testing, and the strategy matches closely with the approach steering Illumina's IVD oncology partnerships. Agendia is the latest to join Illumina's burgeoning IVD partner portfolio; as of now, over 30 IVD partners are honing more than 40 sequencing-based solutions for therapy selection and cancer prognosis, among other applications.
The team-up entails developing new tests to improve breast cancer patient care management. Illumina will leverage its MiSeqDx sequencing platform to help broaden the range of available gene panels for the analysis of solid tumors. MiSeqDx is just one element of the company's booming diagnostic NGS product line, which has expanded accordingly with the recent industry-wide increases in integration of NGS for routine patient care. Illumina's flagship test, MammaPrint, is projected to become the first decentralized NGS-based breast cancer recurrence risk test cleared by the FDA.
For its part, Agendia offers proprietary testing solutions to improve diagnostic accuracy, disease driver identification, and progression tracking for women's breast cancer treatment. The company is confident that Illumina's advanced platform and MammaPrint test will transform breast cancer care in major clinical hospitals globally. MammaPrint brings with it roughly two decades of clinical evidence, including the experiences of 30,000 patients with breast cancer, a 15-year track record of greenlights from the FDA, and well-established CPT codes for broad reimbursement.
