Raritan, NJ – August 25, 2014 – Janssen Diagnostics, LLC today announced the addition of next- generation sequencing (NGS) to the portfolio of services it provides pharmaceutical and academic researchers. With this announcement, Janssen Diagnostics continues to drive innovative solutions for its lab services customers by expanding its lab services offering in rare cell detection beyond its core competencies: the gold-standard CELLSEARCH® System, proteomics, and fluorescent in situ hybridization.
Janssen Diagnostics has entered into an agreement with Asuragen Inc. enabling them to offer NGS to their customers on Asuragen’s proprietary SuraSeq™ panels. This NGS platform allows the rapid analysis of DNA and has proven applicability in oncology research. When used in tandem with the CELLSEARCH® System, this technology can provide researchers with a more comprehensive understanding of tumor biology, drug response, and drug resistance through the capture and interrogation of rare cells (circulating tumor cells, circulating multiple myeloma cells, and others captured via the CELLSEARCH® System).
“We are very pleased to offer NGS services to our research customers,” commented Kristen Hollingsworth, Global Business Leader, Janssen Diagnostics, LLC. “Our lab services team is focused on giving researchers tools to identify biomarkers that may be clinically relevant, and track their subjects’ status over the course of their clinical trials – we call it ‘dynamic monitoring’.”
Performing NGS on rare cells can help detect hidden biological processes. As an example, NGS on circulating tumor cells (CTCs) provides additional insights for cancer researchers as studies have demonstrated heterogeneity in information obtained from a primary tumor versus that which is measured in detectable CTCs.
About Janssen Diagnostics
At Janssen Diagnostics we are passionate about the promise of personalized medicine and its potential to improve outcomes for specific patients through targeted therapies.
We aspire to help doctors and researchers better identify, prevent or intervene earlier with diseases, or cure people with the right medicines for the right person, at the right time.
Being part of Janssen puts us in a strong position, enabling us to bridge Janssen’s extensive pharmaceutical knowledge-base and global capabilities, with our own heritage and talent in research technology, diagnostics and health information technology to deliver integrated solutions into the hands of healthcare providers.
The best way to further our aspirations in the personalized medicine space is to move away from the traditional business model and adopt a more open model that is based on developing the best technologies, either in-house or by partnering with those who own them, to ultimately improve patient outcomes in collaboration with our customers.
What makes Janssen Diagnostics unique is the concentration of minds, personnel and skills at the heart of Pharma R&D, specifically organized to develop and commercialize products and services around meeting patient needs of both today and tomorrow.
Media Contacts:
Frederik Wittock
Janssen Global Services, LLC
fwittock@its.jnj.com or +32 14 60 57 24
Scott Canady
scanady2@its.jnj.com or 809-481-3790