Agena Bioscience and Intermountain Healthcare Announce Research Collaboration to Advance Precision Medicine

SAN DIEGO, CA, AND SAINT GEORGE, UTAH – Agena Bioscience and Intermountain Healthcare announced today a strategic collaboration that focuses on expanding the use of Agena’s MassARRAY^® System in oncology applications. The collaboration concentrates on expansion of Agena’s technology with the goal of focused panels for liquid and tissue biopsy.  The molecular tests augment laboratory services available worldwide from Intermountain Precision Genomics to advance precision medicine in cancer.

Following last month’s successful launch of the ICG100™ Onco Focus Panel, which Intermountain developed on the MassARRAY System, the company is exploring other applications where the lower sample requirements, cost and faster turnaround time can benefit their service offering.

“We found the assays to be relatively simple to design, with intuitive, scalable laboratory workflows. The flexibility of the platform opens up possibilities for new clinically validated diagnostic panels.” said Tom Neuwerth, Quality Assurance Coordinator at Intermountain Precision Genomics Core Laboratory.” Neuwerth adds, “We are exploring methods for further improving sensitivity using a focused approach for somatic mutation detection in Formalin-Fixed-Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissues and liquid biopsies.”

“Intermountain Healthcare is a recognized leader in clinical excellence, and we are proud to be chosen by them.” said Peter Dansky, Chief Executive Officer at Agena Bioscience.  “We believe this collaboration will provide many benefits to Intermountain’s oncology development program, and will further add to Agena’s leadership in providing affordable multiplex molecular systems to laboratories worldwide.”

 About Agena Bioscience

Agena Bioscience develops, manufactures, and supplies genetic analysis systems and reagents, including the MassARRAY^® System. The system is a highly sensitive, cost-effective, mass spectrometry-based platform for high-throughput genetic analysis, and is used globally in diverse research fields such as cancer profiling for solid tumors and liquid biopsies, inherited genetic disease testing, pharmacogenetics, agricultural genomics, and clinical research.  For more information about Agena, visit www.agenabio.com.

 About Intermountain Healthcare

Intermountain Healthcare is a not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, a Medical Group with about 1,500 employed physicians and advanced practitioners, a health plan group called SelectHealth, and other medical services. Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain Healthcare, visit www.intermountainhealthcare.org. Intermountain Precision Genomics (IPG) is a service of Intermountain Healthcare. For more information about Intermountain Precision Genomics, please visit: precisioncancer.org, join the dialog on Facebook (Intermountain Precision Genomics) or follow @precisioncancer on Twitter.