QIAGEN and INOVIO Pharmaceuticals gave announced the expansion of their partnership through a new framework agreement for the development of liquid biopsy companion diagnostic products based on NGS technology (Next Generation Sequencing) to complement INOVIO's therapies.
The initial project of this expanded collaboration is the joint development of a diagnostic test to identify women most likely to benefit from the clinical application of VGX-3100, INOVIO's immunotherapy for the treatment of advanced cervical dysplasia associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV) in Be connected, be able to benefit. QIAGEN's bioinformatics expertise will further increase the predictive accuracy of INOVIO's tentative biomarker signature. The test is now being developed for use on the Illumina NextSeq ™ 550Dx platform. It is the first development based on a partnership signed between QIAGEN and Illumina in October 2019.
VGX-3100 is INOVIO's active ingredient for late-stage DNA immunotherapy. It is currently in two Phase 3 studies (REVEAL 1 and REVEAL 2) and could become the first non-surgical treatment for advanced, precancerous lesions of the cervix associated with the virus (HPV-16 and HPV-18) .
“As we continue to develop our DNA drug platform, we are always looking for ways to drive innovation with our own technology or that of a creative and competent partner. QIAGEN has an extensive track record in developing and commercializing novel diagnostic tests, ”said Dr. J. Joseph Kim, President and CEO of INOVIO. “INOVIO is developing VGX-3100 as a non-surgical treatment approach for precancerous diseases of the cervix. The biomarker-based pretreatment that we have discovered could provide a targeted way of pinpointing the patients who are most likely to respond to treatment. Our goal is to increase the absolute effectiveness of immunotherapy. "
