Biocartis announces global collaboration with Covance

Biocartis NV (the ‘Company’ or ‘Biocartis’), an innovative molecular diagnostics company (Euronext Brussels: BCART), announces the global strategic commercialization agreement with Covance, Lab Drug Development business. The agreement aims at offering the Idylla(TM) platform and its existing Idylla(TM) oncology assay menu to Covance’s customer base. Several Idylla(TM) instruments have already been placed at Covance sites in the US and China to support global oncology trials. The agreement provides for additional placement of Idylla(TM) instruments at Covance sites globally to support customer needs for clinical trials and, when appropriate, to validate and implement companion diagnostic applications.

Covance has been involved in the development of all of the current top 50 drugs on the market as measured by sales revenue. Furthermore, it has the central laboratory network serving the biopharma industry, across multiple therapeutic areas, with a specific focus on precision medicine. 

The market for targeted treatments is expanding rapidly with an increasing number of pharmaceutical companies that have a biomarker component built into their drug development pipeline. In 2018, over 1,100 cancer treatments were in development in the US, and 42% of all 2018 new approved therapies represented a personalized medicine approach. Clinical studies for these therapies, which include testing that is performed in global laboratories such as Covance, require rapid and standardized biomarker molecular diagnostic testing platforms to help customers meet their needs for efficient patient enrollment and trial execution.

Herman Verrelst, Chief Executive Officer of Biocartis, commented: “We are proud to announce the partnership with Covance, which is another important step in building an ecosystem around Idylla(TM), this time by deploying our Idylla(TM) technology in one of the largest laboratory networks used by the pharmaceutical industry to conduct drug development. We believe that the fully automated and standardized workflow of our Idylla(TM) platform can be of significant value here, potentially paving the way for new partnerships with pharmaceutical companies in the context of their oncology treatment developments.”

Steve Anderson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Covance, said: “This collaboration demonstrates our continued commitment to advances in precision medicine. Idylla(TM) is a unique rapid molecular diagnostic platform, which we believe offers a wide range of benefits to our customers. Its standardized and fully automated workflow can provide short turnaround times combined with excellent performance. These features are necessary to facilitate the rapid identification and efficient enrollment of patients into clinical trials.”

Financial details of the agreement are not disclosed.