The Dept of Pathology at the Uppsala University Hospital evaluates Biotage’s new Pyrosequencing® platform for clinical diagnostics in oncology
PyroMarkTMQ24 is the new Biotage Pyrosequencing® platform, which is being launched in March. The Molecular Pathology at the Dept of Pathology, Uppsala University Hospital, is evaluating the new PyroMark Q24TM to implement the Pyrosequencing® technology in cancer diagnostics.
Several novel drugs against the growth hormone receptor EGFR have been recently approved for the treatment of advanced colorectal- and lung cancer. The efficacy of all of these drugs is strongly connected to the mutation status of the gene k-ras. Many studies give evidence that patients with k-ras mutation do not response to EGFR-inhibitor treatment; in contrast patients without mutation are much more likely to benefit significantly from this therapy in these often fatal cancer forms.
Biotage provides an established assay for the determination of this clinical relevant mutation. The assay determines contiguous, multi-variable mutations at codons 12 and 13 of the K-ras gene, as well as rare mutations in codon 61. Initial focus of the molecular pathology group is to test the k-ras assay on the new PyroMarkTMQ24 platform for clinical cancer diagnostics. Dr. Patrick Micke from the Dept of Pathology stresses the clinical importance to implement robust and sensitive molecular analyses in cancer diagnostics. “We have had good experience with the PyroMark system within a previous clinical research project. Therefore we were interested in extending the collaboration into clinical practice. As a result we are able to provide the mutation analysis already today for clinicians. In the next month we will carefully test the system and, in cooperation with other pathology centers, compare it to other methods.”
“We are very pleased to collaborate with the Uppsala University Hospital. Our future strategy is to explore the diagnostic and clinical research market with our innovative solutions for genetic analysis. We believe that the new Biotage Pyrosequencing® platform together with new diagnostic kits is coming to play an important role in future genomic cancer diagnostics. Genomic analysis of cancer associated genes might predict prognosis, tendency of disease recurrence, or the response to different cancer therapies. The collaboration with Dr. Micke and his team is one of several efforts that we expect to lead into further future product developments.” says Torben Jørgensen, CEO & President of Biotage.
Contact:
Torben Jörgensen, President and CEO
Tel: +46 707 49 05 84, torben.jorgensen@eu.biotage.com