AstraZeneca Partners With Illumina For Gene Sequencing
U.K. pharma giant AstraZeneca announced that it has partnered with Illumina, a gene sequencing firm, for the development of its next generation sequencing (NGS) platform and produce companion diagnostic tests applicable to AstraZeneca’s oncology portfolio.
The collaboration will center on Illumina’s NGS technology which is able to sequence multiple genes faster and more cheaply than traditional DNA sequencing techniques. Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will use Illumina’s NGS technology to screen a panel of multiple gene sequences and to scan for all possible genetic variants from a single tumor sample. The technology will also be used to develop a novel companion diagnostic for an investigational oncology compound. This test is expected to be among the first NGS-based companion diagnostic test for a novel drug and could be helpful in expediting the clinical trial process.
Ruth March, VP of Personalized Healthcare & Biomarkers at AstraZeneca, said, “This partnership has the potential to deliver an unprecedented amount of clinical information from a single test. Illumina’s technology will inform doctors about the molecular make-up of their patients’ tumors, enabling them to match medicines to the drivers of disease.” March said that the collaboration’s goal is to provide doctors with the tests to guide in prescribing the right drugs for the right patients.
Rick Klausner, Illumina’s CMO, said, “Illumina is developing a universal test system to support our partners’ oncology drug pipelines. We’re excited to be working together with companies such as AstraZeneca, and other bodies, to maximize genomic medicine benefits to patients.” Klausner shared that the company will be a key player in a new genome initiative launched by the U.K. government. This new initiative involving Illumina and Genomics England aims to sequence 100,000 genomes of patients and link the information to the National Health Service (NHS) database. The project in essence helps make the U.K. the first country in the world to integrate genome sequencing into its mainstream healthcare initiative.
AZ hopes that the collaboration will take it a step closer to realizing personalized healthcare for patients. The partnership with Illumina follows separate collaborations with Roche and Qiagen. The previous agreements focused on developing tests for DNA analysis based on lung cancer patients’ tumors circulating in the bloodstream and determining the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation status.