Targos, Wuxi to collaborate on biomarker services, pathology training in China
The collaboration will focus on the validation and analysis of clinical tissue biomarkers in cancer. Targos will also provide its internationally known training and education to support pathologists and histotechnologists in generating accurate, objective, and reproducible diagnostic results.
“Targos will mainly offer tissue biomarker services to WuXi,” Targos spokesman George Kumar told Outsourcing-Pharma.com. “This will include Immunohistochemistry (IHC), In Situ Hybridization (ISH) and other histology related services such as tissue microarray (TMA) construction from customer’s Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissue specimens.”
Targos will also provide Wuxi pathology slide review services via long-distance image transfer for education, research and clinical trials, in addition to assisting Wuxi in training their histotechnicians on slide preparation and staining, Kumar added.
“Quite often pharmaceutical and biotech companies request molecular pathology testing services in drug discovery and development,” Kumar told us. “In clinical trials, these services help medical teams segment patient populations based on biomarker profiles and thereby better target new medicines for greater patient safety and efficacy.”
Targos, in collaboration with Wuxi, will also offer one to three day international biomarker training courses for pathologists and oncologists in China, Kumar said. This will include:
- Standardization and biomarker testing related to IHC, FISH, CISH, SISH and ddISH;
- HER2 testing (FISH, IHC, CISH, SISH, ddISH);
- EGFR IHC testing and ALK-FISH testing;
- Focus on quality control and standardization;
- Breast cancer pathology and correlation to clinical oncology;
- Gastric cancer pathology and correlation to clinical oncology; and
- Lung cancer pathology and correlation to clinical oncology.
"This agreement with Targos advances WuXi's mission of offering our customers the broadest range of capabilities to support their drug development," added Ge Li, chairman and CEO of Wuxi.
This is Wuxi’s second deal in the biomarkers sector over the last three months. The company previously partnered with Pacific Biomarkers to gain access to more validated biomarker assays.
