Qiagen N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, has entered two new partnerships for its medical testing system, QIAcuity.
The company will collaborate with Atila BioSystems to provide non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and Actome GmbH to expand the reach of QIAcuity, according to a Jan. 7 news release.
The collaboration between the companies could mean safer treatments for expecting mothers and support advancements in disease research.
"NIPT requires only a blood sample from the mother and replaces more invasive testing methods such as amniocentesis that can endanger the fetus and mother, " the release stated.
Qiagen has entered a licensing and co-marketing agreement with Actome GmbH, a German life-sciences start-up that "extends QIAcuity’s reach beyond genomics into proteomics, enabling the quantification of proteins as well as the analyses of interactions between different proteins and between proteins and target genes," according to the release.
"QIAcuity is expanding into new research fields as a cost-effective and very reliable digital PCR (polymerase chain reaction) system,” Thomas Schweins, senior vice president and head of the Life Science Business Area at Qiagen, said in a statement. “The partnership with Actome extends for the first time the use of this technology to protein quantification and protein-protein interaction. This technology is significantly more robust and precise than traditional real-time PCR. In particular, it enables the quantification of rare genetic events – such as cancer mutations – with very high precision and in absolute terms, even in a high background of wildtype genes. We expect more than half of all traditional PCR applications to eventually move to digital PCR.”
The processing time for each sample tested with the QIAcuity system is another benefit of the technology, the release stated, as samples are processed in 2 1/2 hours compared to 5 hours with other systems.
As part of the deal, Qiagen has agreed to make an undisclosed investment in Actome, according to the release.
"The companies will now jointly develop assays for protein quantification, which will complement genomic analysis and help establish a fuller picture of a disease," the release stated. "The technology has the potential to drive the discovery of new biomarkers and the development of new drugs and diagnostics. It is a step on the path to understanding the interactome, all the molecular interactions in a cell, that contribute to diseases."