Abbott and the biopharmaceutical company Sanofi are collaborating to integrate Abbott’s glucose sensing FreeStyle libre technology with Sanofi’s insulin delivery technologies. The companies’ aim is to simplify how people with diabetes manage their condition. The FreeStyle Libre system is a continuous glucose monitoring system that reads glucose levels through a sensor that patients wear on the back of the upper arm, thereby eliminating the need for fingersticks. The partnership will initially enable data sharing, at the consent of the user, between the FreeStyle Libre mobile app and cloud software and FreeStyle Libre-compatible insulin pens, insulin titration apps, and cloud software that Sanofi is developing and expects to make available within the next few years.
“By partnering with Abbott, we are a step closer to realizing our connected ecosystem, which would help improve control and the quality of life decision-cycle for patients through individualized glycemic management of diabetes,” said Gustavo Pesquin, senior vice president of Global Diabetes and Cardiovascular Franchise at Sanofi.
Quest, hc1 Introduce New Lab Test Utilization Service
Quest Diagnostics and the bioinformatics company hc1 have launched Quest Lab Stewardship powered by hc1, a new service that uses machine learning to help improve laboratory test utilization. Standard test utilization programs often require time-consuming manual uploads of data or use platforms that cannot pull from disparate enterprise systems or provide real-time test ordering guidance. Quest Lab Stewardship is designed to eliminate these limitations. It features real-time enterprise system integration and data organization across electronic medical records and laboratory information systems with the goal of helping health systems to rapidly identify problematic utilization patterns. The program also organizes data so that health systems can analyze utilization trends for specific locations, providers, departments, and tests. Quest Lab Stewardship also creates a system-wide normalized test compendium to eliminate the confusion of having multiple names for the same test across multiple compendia. Additionally, it comes with built-in, nationally recognized medical laboratory guidelines to help lab stewardship committees design and implement real-time test order prompts.
Sysmex America to Fund Clinical Lab 2.0 Project to Improve Anemia Outcomes
Sysmex America is providing the Clinical Lab 2.0 initiative with a grant that will support a multi-institutional project to develop clinical strategies for anemia early detection, intervention, and prevention. Clinical Lab 2.0 was established by the Project Santa Fe Foundation to gather evidence supporting the value of clinical laboratory services in the modern healthcare environment. As part of the project focused on anemia, Clinical Laboratory 2.0 will encourage labs to aggregate and leverage their clinical data to support proactive care of anemic patients. Healthcare systems that implement strategies to better manage anemia could significantly reduce patient complications along with associated costs. Clinical Laboratory 2.0 aims to use population risk stratification and identification of care gaps and high-risk patients to help speed interventions before patients are admitted for care.
Illumina, Adaptive Biotechnologies Team on NGS-Based Immunodiagnostics
Illumina has partnered with Adaptive Biotechnologies to develop test kits for Adaptive’s current and future portfolio of next-generation sequencing-based immunodiagnostics. Under the non-exclusive agreement, Adaptive will develop new versions of the clonoSEQ and immunoSEQ Dx test kits that run on Illumina’s NextSeq 550Dx system. Adaptive will then be responsible for obtaining regulatory approvals for the test kits and commercializing them. These new test kits will expand the availability of Adaptive’s clonoSEQ assay, which assesses and monitors minimal residual disease to aid in the management of certain blood cancers, and will also expand the availability of the research use only immunoSEQ Dx assay. Currently, the clonoSEQ and immunoSEQ Dx assays are only performed at Adaptive’s lab in Seattle. By designing new kits for Illumina’s platform, Adaptive will enable local laboratories across the U.S. to run these tests.
Foundation Medicine, Natera Collaborate on Circulating Tumor DNA Tests
Foundation Medicine and Natera have joined forces to develop and commercialize personalized circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) monitoring assays. In 2020, the collaboration will initially use ctDNA assays in biopharmaceutical trials to establish the clinical utility of these tests. Following these studies, the partners then plan to make a ctDNA test available to clinical customers. Foundation Medicine and Natera will use FoundationOne CDx—a companion diagnostic for solid tumors—as the baseline test to define a set of unique variants that the companies will subsequently monitor using a co-developed assay that includes components of Natera’s Signatera platform. As the collaboration progresses, Foundation Medicine might also expand the scope of the partnership to develop ctDNA monitoring assays that use genomic data generated by Foundation Medicine’s FoundationOne Liquid test for solid tumors or by the FoundationOne Heme test for hematologic malignancies and sarcomas.
CareDx, NanoString Partner on Organ Transplant Rejection Test
CareDx has teamed with NanoString to develop HistoMap, a gene expression profiling test that identifies allograft rejection in transplant biopsy tissue and that aims to bring precision medicine to histopathology. To develop this test, CareDx will combine NanoString’s nCounter technology with the company’s newly introduced Human Organ Transplant panel, a 770-gene panel designed to evaluate the human immune response following organ transplantation. The partnership will leverage CareDx’s clinical experience and extensive transplant registries along with NanoString’s technological capabilities and development experience. “We are excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with CareDx to bring essential advancements in molecular characterization to the field of organ transplantation,” said Brad Gray, president and CEO of NanoString. “Combining the core strengths of the nCounter technology and our innovative new panel along with the translational expertise of CareDx sets a path to develop novel clinical solutions for better patient outcomes.”