Quest Diagnostics and Ultima Collaborate to Scale Ultima’s Technology in Fast-Growing Minimal Residual Disease and Whole Genome Sequencing
09 Enero 2024 - 7:05AM
Business Wire
Goal to combine Ultima’s highly sensitive, low-cost technology
with Quest’s oncology expertise and national scale in order to
improve patient access, affordability and outcomes
Ultima Genomics, a developer of a revolutionary new ultra-high
throughput sequencing architecture, and Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:
DGX), the nation’s leading provider of diagnostic information
services, today announced a collaboration involving Ultima’s next
generation sequencing (NGS) technology in oncology and other
clinical areas.
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The collaboration aims to improve patient access, affordability
and outcomes by broadening the use of highly accurate,
cost-efficient and high-volume whole genome sequencing for
fast-growth areas, such as solid-tumor minimal residual disease
(MRD) testing. Quest intends to deploy the Ultima technology for
the possible development of lab-developed tests involving its
Haystack solid-tumor MRD™ technology for future clinical and
biopharmaceutical MRD applications, supplementing its current whole
exome sequencing approach, as well as for certain future whole
genome testing applications, such as rare disease detection in
pediatric patients.
Ultima recently unveiled its platform technology, a new
sequencing architecture that supports sequencing an entire genome
for $100. At an event in December 2023, the Company previewed its
first commercial system to use this new architecture, the UG 100™
System, to a group of leaders across the genomics field. In
addition to lower costs, the technology is also unique for its high
sensitivity for detecting rare cancer-related gene variants,
particularly changes in DNA base pairs called single nucleotide
variants (SNVs).
The collaboration will leverage Quest's expertise and scale in
oncology, genomics and pathology and national scale in tumor biopsy
and blood specimen collection. Quest provides comprehensive
oncology services, spanning genetic risk assessment, cancer
diagnostics and treatment monitoring, to marquee health systems and
other providers in the United States. The company’s approximately
400 AmeriPath pathologists provide tumor biopsy diagnostic services
while its 7,000 patient access sites nationwide provide blood
draws.
“We are delighted to collaborate with the world’s leading
diagnostics information services provider to deploy our technology
toward lab-developed tests for applications benefiting from
insights from whole genome sequencing,” said Gilad Almogy, Ultima
Genomics CEO. “Ultima’s technology was designed for applications
requiring greater sequencing depth, breadth, or frequency and both
MRD testing and whole genome sequencing are premier examples of
these. Our unique advantages in SNV detection, combined with
greater sequencing depth at lower cost can be transformational for
oncology applications and MRD, as well as for cell-free DNA
applications and applications with challenging samples. The
collaboration with Quest emphasizes our focus on enabling the
leading organizations that will help us scale our technology and,
most importantly, benefit patients and providers.”
“Quest’s strategy is to deliver solutions to meet the evolving
needs of our key customers: physicians, health systems and
consumers. One way we do that is by innovating solutions that
combine our strengths with those of tech pioneers, such as Ultima,
that are setting new industry standards,” said Mark Gardner, Senior
Vice President, Molecular Genomics and Oncology at Quest
Diagnostics. “By radically driving sequencing costs down, Ultima
has changed the economics of genomics so that other costs in the
testing value chain become critically important. And that’s where
Quest’s strengths come in: With our scale in solid tumor and blood
testing, we can drive costs down even further while also increasing
access, so more people can benefit from the clinically rich
insights of whole genome sequencing.”
In 2014, it became possible to sequence a human genome in its
entirety for $1,000. While technology improvements have occurred
since then, the costs of sequencing have remained elevated for much
of the last decade. As a result, whole genome sequencing is
typically used for rare disease and some oncology testing, but less
available for applications targeting large populations. The Ultima
technology was created from the “ground-up” to overcome this
challenge while also enhancing accuracy, productivity, and
flexibility for high-volume applications. With innovations that
include an open wafer to replace a traditional flow cell, built-in
technology to enable highly accurate SNV detection, as well as
machine learning to drive continuous improvement in sequencing data
quality, Ultima’s UG 100TM sequencer offers unique benefits for
many high-volume applications.
In 2023, 1,958,310 new cancer cases and 609,820 cancer deaths
are projected to occur in the U.S. Most cancers are due to solid
tumors, such as colorectal, breast, skin and lung cancer. While
treatment typically combines surgical tumor removal and adjuvant
chemo- or immune therapy, tiny cancer molecules can persist,
triggering cancer recurrence.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve
health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of
clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to
identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve
health care management. Quest annually serves one in three adult
Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United
States, and our nearly 50,000 employees understand that, in the
right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can
inspire actions that transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
About Ultima Genomics
Ultima Genomics is unleashing the power of genomics at scale.
The Company's mission is to continuously drive the scale of genomic
information to enable unprecedented advances in biology and
improvements in human health. With humanity on the cusp of a
biological revolution, there is a virtually endless need for more
genomic information to address biology's complexity and dynamic
change—and a further need to challenge conventional next-generation
sequencing technologies. Ultima's revolutionary new sequencing
architecture drives down the costs of sequencing to help overcome
the tradeoffs that scientists and clinicians are forced to make
between the breadth, depth and frequency with which they use
genomic information. The new sequencing architecture was designed
to scale far beyond conventional sequencing technologies, lower the
cost of genomic information and catalyze the next phase of genomics
in the 21st century. To learn more, visit
www.ultimagenomics.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240109665572/en/
Quest Contacts: Jennifer Petrella, Quest Diagnostics
(Media): 973-520-2800 or mediacontact@QuestDiagnostics.com; Shawn
Bevec, Quest Diagnostics (Investors): 973-520-2900
Ultima Contacts: Consort Partners for Ultima Genomics
ultimagenomics@consortpartners.com
Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX)
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