Agena Bioscience and nRichDX have advanced their existing technical collaboration to a commercial partnership that co-promotes their products to researchers developing liquid biopsy applications on the Agena MassARRAY platform.

The early detection of rare oncology analytes is the primary goal of liquid biopsy research and development; however, existing methods of analyte extraction are not often able to extract sufficient rare analytes, like circulating cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA), to enable the development of highly sensitive liquid biopsy-based assays.

The Revolution Sample Prep System routinely extracts higher yields of even the rarest of variant transcripts from bodily fluids as compared to other methods, which in turn increases the detection sensitivity of the MassARRAY platform. Together, these systems are a welcomed advancement towards the detection of rare cancer genetic targets in liquid biopsy samples, which have applications in the area of cancer detection, therapy selection, treatment monitoring and minimal residual disease.

"Agena is pleased to collaborate with nRichDX to provide clinical investigators with research solutions that can deliver greater assay sensitivity and improved detection of rare analytes on the MassARRAY platform." said Darryl Irwin, Vice President of Scientific Affairs at Agena Bioscience. "Liquid biopsy test developers are looking forward to the creation of highly sensitive assays that can use body fluids as inputs, especially in the area of early detection of cancer which requires extraction retrieval and detection of the rarest of alterations" he said.

"More sensitive detection of rare cancer markers translates to the earlier detection and treatment of cancer…the shared goal of liquid biopsy test developers and oncologists," said William Curtis, CEO for nRichDX. "The combination of the Agena MassARRAY and Revolution Sample Prep System platforms represents a meaningful advancement for liquid biopsy development," he said.

The companies plan to jointly present data at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting, April 14-19, in Orlando, Florida and plan to continue their partnership to present additional data at future meetings and prepare additional resources for liquid biopsy researchers.