HalioDx SAS, an immuno-oncology diagnostics company, has entered an agreement with NanoString Technologies, a provider of products for translational research and molecular diagnostics, to jointly develop and commercialize advanced gene expression assays for assessing immunotherapeutic responses.
Under the terms of the agreement, HalioDx and NanoString will collaborate to develop immune gene expression assays on the NanoString nCounter Analysis System, grounded on the discoveries of Dr. Jerome Galon, research director at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm). Galon and his team (Inserm UMRS 1138) are based at Cordeliers Research Center in France.
“HalioDx is very excited to jointly develop with NanoString our innovative predictive and prognostic immune gene expression signatures on the nCounter platform, one of the best multi-analyte testing platforms for translating gene expression signatures to routine diagnostic use,” Vincent Fert, HalioDx CEO and co-founder, said in a press release.
“At HalioDx, we want to develop diagnostic solutions that can be easily used in routine clinical practice settings and we selected the nCounter platform because of its robustness, turn-around time, and compatibility with formalin-fixed-paraffin-embedded tissue samples. Our co-developed immune gene expression assays will complement the breakthrough Immunoscore IHC assay, to foster the development of more precise immunotherapies,” Fert said.
HalioDx and NanoString will now offer products and related services to academic, pharmaceutical, and biotech costumers around the world. These products and services will enable drug researchers to use assays to assess immunotherapeutic responses, which will consequently improve the selection of patients who will benefit the most from these therapies. This joint venture is the first in a series of potential new collaborations in precision immuno-oncology.
“This collaboration with HalioDx adds another powerful tool to the nCounter immuno-oncology toolkit to support our customers’ efforts in developing clinically validated predictive biomarkers for cancer immunotherapies,” said Brad Gray, president and CEO of NanoString Technologies.
“With the ability to process small tissue samples with minimal hands-on time, NanoString’s nCounter technology provides a powerful solution to researchers and drug developers who are in search of biomarkers for precision oncology, and is ideally suited to answering complex questions in translational research in the field of immuno-oncology,” Gray said.
