NEW YORK (360Dx) – Marseille, France-based HalioDx said today that it has signed an exclusive agreement with Genecast for distribution of its Immunoscore colon-cancer assay in China.
As a result of the agreement, oncologists and patients in China will have access to the Immunoscore diagnostic assay, which is used to predict the risk of recurrence in patients with early-stage colon cancer, HalioDx said.
Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The assay combines tissue diagnostics and advanced image analysis to enable the extraction of spatially-organized molecular information and to quantify lymphocytes that infiltrate both the core of the tumor and its invasive margin. The assay is quantitative and guides oncologists in deciding on critical therapeutic options in stage II and stage III colon cancers, HalioDx said.
The clinical value of Immunoscore, the firm's first in vitro diagnostic assay, has been validated in several studies on early-stage colon cancer patients, HalioDx said.
Citing the International Agency for Research on Cancer, HalioDx CEO Vincent Fert said in a statement that there are more than 500,000 new cases of colorectal cancers per year in China.
"For half of these patients, treatment decisions are problematic leading to over or under treatments," he said.