Danaher and AstraZeneca Partner on Next Generation AI-Powered Diagnostics

Danaher Corporation (Washington, D.C., USA) has entered into a partnership with AstraZeneca (Cambridge, UK to develop and commercialize novel diagnostic tools and tests intended to help clinicians better determine which patients would most benefit from precision medicine treatments.

This partnership will utilize the newly opened Danaher Centers for Enabling Precision Medicine to support a more streamlined, end-to-end development process. The first product intended to be developed through this partnership will leverage technologies from Leica Biosystems (Nussloch, Germany), one of Danaher's subsidiaries. The initial focus will be on digital and computational pathology products and AI-assisted algorithms to help clinicians better diagnose patients by identifying those who are most likely to benefit from targeted therapies.

Image: The partnership will initially focus on digital and computational pathology products and AI-assisted algorithms (Photo courtesy of Leica Biosystems)

Leica Biosystems has developed leading digital pathology solutions and intends to scale these for use in clinical settings across its footprint of laboratories around the world. To accelerate this digital transformation, the company recently shared its commitment to an open-access Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard, encouraging interoperability for enhanced workflow connectivity.

"Precision medicines are more targeted than standard therapies and thus require precision diagnostics to determine which patients are most likely to benefit," said Julie Sawyer Montgomery, Danaher Executive Vice President. "We are excited to work with AstraZeneca on the goal of creating novel tests to increase access to precision medicines, helping ensure that no patients are left behind."

"The transformative potential of next-wave precision medicines such as antibody-drug conjugates will depend on our ability to identify the patients most likely to benefit from them," said Susan Galbraith, Executive Vice President, Oncology Hematology R&D, AstraZeneca. "Our partnership with Danaher and Leica Biosystems underscores our commitment to pioneering AI-based diagnostics which can improve patient selection, and our belief that collaboration is a critical accelerant for such progress."

"At Leica Biosystems, we've been driving the new era of digital pathology, where assays that used to be analyzed by the human eye are now also analyzed by digital tools, helping to improve diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic guidance," said Gustavo Perez-Fernandez, President of Leica Biosystems. "With our global footprint and leading digital pathology platform, we expect to be able to deploy the tests developed with AstraZeneca to patients worldwide, which could significantly advance precision medicine and improve outcomes for patients on a global scale."