QIAGEN is anticipating enhancing its industry leading position is various areas with the newfound access to N-of-One’s MarkerMine database subsequent to the acquisition. As QIAGEN puts it in the news release announcing the deal, “N-of-One’s technology-enabled, yet human-driven, services and the proprietary MarkerMine database are planned to be integrated into QIAGEN Clinical Insight (QCI), enhancing this industry-leading clinical offering with medical interpretation and real-world evidence insights and offering robust decision support in oncology.”

 

The proprietary database, services and processes of N-of-One produce case-specific reports based on data generated with molecular tests, including next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, and deliver clinical evidence for biomarkers and a list of therapeutic options for consideration. N-of-One also provides patient-specific clinical trial matching services and a somatic cancer database with more than 125,000 anonymized patient samples. This data will be added to the patient samples currently available in QCI, further increasing QIAGEN’s position in offering what it says is “by far the largest genomics knowledge base.”

 

“N-of-One has made tremendous strides in molecular oncology decision support, and their combination with QIAGEN’s own pre-curated knowledge base of evidence will provide powerful new tools to expand our abilities to deliver patient-specific insights,” said Jonathan Sheldon, senior vice president of QIAGEN’s Bioinformatics Business Area. “We look forward to combining N-of-One’s Precision Insights and Rapid Insights reporting tools, as well as their MarkerMine database, into our QCI portfolio, which is a leading integrated solution for NGS analysis and interpretation. This will further strengthen QIAGEN’s leadership in clinical decision support and provide customers with solutions powered by real-world evidence Insights.”

 

For her part, N-of-One CEO Christine M. Cournoyer added, “We are excited about expanding N-of-One’s impact. With QIAGEN’s resources and reach, our combined technology will provide more patients with greater potential therapeutic strategies.”

 

QIAGEN believes the addition of N-of-One advances its bioinformatics strategy while also providing access to new opportunities emerging to support healthcare providers and payers with access to real-world evidence (RWE) insights, with QIAGEN noting the following:

According to QIAGEN, “QCI is the leading integrated solution for NGS analysis and interpretation,” and the addition of N-of-One is expected to make it even more valuable for labs in analyzing and interpreting NGS data in a broad range of applications. QIAGEN recently announced major improvements to this offering that is anchored by applications for oncology and hereditary diseases. Powered by the QIAGEN Knowledge Base, QCI can annotate, interpret and report NGS variants in the context of over 10 million relevant biomedical findings while building the user’s internal experiential knowledge base. The best-in-class workflow minimizes the complexity, time and cost of determining clinical significance and actionability of NGS variants.

 

In other recent news, QIAGEN announced not too long ago that it and NeoGenomics have joined forces once again, exploring more ways that their respective specialties complement each other to provide mutually beneficial products and services to customers. Their latest master service agreement, announced in late 2018, paves the way for better access to precision medicine for cancer patients, with the companies saying their partnership will help ensure that patients and their oncologists will have immediate access to FDA-approved diagnostic tests in tandem with novel cancer drugs.