NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Illumina and Chinese clinical testing firm KingMed Diagnostics have partnered to develop next-generation sequencing-based oncology and hereditary disease diagnostics for the Chinese market.
Under the agreement, the companies will codevelop an NGS system based on Illumina's MiniSeq technology and KingMed's library prep kits and analysis.
Garret Hampton, executive vice president of clinical genomics at Illumina, said in a statement that Illumina plans to help KingMed customize MiniSeq under China Food and Drug Administration requirements for clinical oncology applications.
The companies plan to bring the system and assays through CFDA approval and offer testing through KingMed's clinical network that serves more than 8,000 hospitals in China.
KingMed aims to "improve diagnosis and treatment for the more than 4 million new cancer patients identified in China each year," Yaoming Liang, chairman and CEO of KingMed, said in a statement. The firm wanted to collaborate with Illumina because of its "proven track record of working with multiple domestic companies in China," Liang added.