Quintiles, PGT in Genomic Testing Pact

Quintiles and Population Genetics Technologies Ltd. (PGT) have entered a commercial collaboration to bring genomic testing into mainstream drug development in an effort to produce safer, more effective medicines.

The two companies will jointly identify opportunities to apply large-scale genomic analyses — using samples from hundreds to thousands of individuals — to test clinical hypotheses and correlate biomarkers of disease prognosis and drug responsiveness. This approach is aimed at the rapid identification of rare and common genes that collectively account for significant variation in treatment responses. The collaboration will use PGT’s technology, which can process hundreds of genomes simultaneously, in a single sequencing assay, while still retaining the ability to identify each individual genome during post-sequencing data analysis.

“PGT’s technology combined with Quintiles’ global presence can bring the benefits of large-scale sequencing and analysis to virtually all biopharmaceutical companies,” said M. King Jolly, Pharm.D., senior vice president of Quintiles Innovation. “The combination of Quintiles and PGT’s capabilities can, we believe, increase the probability of success in clinical trials, reduce trial enrollment required to achieve statistical significance, and diminish the costs and/or time required to bring a product to market — all while improving product differentiation.”

PGT chief commercial officer Frank Massam, Ph.D., said, “Our first project with Quintiles is a renal cancer clinical trial to identify genetic markers predictive of both adverse events and efficacy, but our workflows are appropriate to all therapeutic areas. We are currently running programs in breast cancer, leukemia and Alzheimer’s disease. We are proud to be associated with the work that Quintiles is leading to deliver real patient benefits from cutting-edge genomic research.”