NEW YORK – NuProbe and medical device/pharma firm Weigao Group have announced a strategic collaboration to use NuProbe's proprietary blocker displacement amplification (BDA) technology to develop a liquid biopsy next-generation sequencing panel for non-small cell lung cancer for the Chinese market.
The product will be compatible with available desktop NGS instruments, and competitive in terms of sensitivity, according to NuProbe. The partners plan to eventually apply for in vitro diagnostic (IVD) registration with China's National Medical Products Administration.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
According to NuProbe CEO Yingshuang Chai, NGS is not yet widely adopted across Chinese hospitals, which continue to favor PCR technologies. But the companies believe they can provide clinicians and patients with an option that is affordable and sensitive enough to take hold.
"Our mission is to provide decentralized NGS liquid biopsy clinical solutions and offer real-time responses for the vast patient base in second- and third-tier hospitals in China with fewer resources," Lin Chen, vice chairman of the board of directors of Weigao Group said in a statement.
"NuProbe has developed world-class, cutting-edge technologies and is currently the only company able to develop products on desktop NGS instruments with 0.1 percent [variant allele frequency] accuracy at a very low cost, and thus is our ideal partner," Chen added.