Illumina and Boehringer Ingelheim Partner to Develop Companion Diagnostics (CDx) for Cancer Treatment

Illumina Inc. (San Diego, CA, USA) has entered into a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim (Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany) to develop companion diagnostics (CDx) for several programs in the latter’s oncology pipeline. The partnership aims to accelerate the development of therapy selection and precision medicines for patients with advanced cancer.

The partnership spans current and future CDx programs, with plans to add CDx claims to an in vitro diagnostic test Illumina is developing that is based on the content of TruSight Oncology 500 (TSO 500). The first program will co-develop a CDx for a Boehringer Ingelheim investigational medicine. TSO 500 is a Research Use Only comprehensive pan-cancer assay designed to identify 523 known and emerging tumor biomarkers. TSO 500 utilizes both DNA and RNA from tumor samples to identify key variants critical for cancer development and progression, such as small DNA variants, fusions, and splice variants. Based on the content of TSO 500, Illumina will be adding an in vitro diagnostic test to the TruSight Oncology product family. This comprehensive tumor profiling assay will have similar chemistry and analytics to TSO 500.

"We are delighted that Boehringer Ingelheim has chosen Illumina to be its long-term partner in the development of companion diagnostics for the treatment of cancers," said Joydeep Goswami, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer of Illumina. "Illumina continues to provide the leading distributable assay enabling comprehensive genomic profiling for both tissue and liquid biopsy and together we will unlock the potential of new biomarkers to identify patients most likely to benefit from new precision medicines."

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