Roche Acquires German Genetic Data Company
By Bio-IT World Staff
February 9, 2015 | Roche has added another company to its Roche Sequencing Unit. Signature Diagnostics AG, a privately held company based in Potsdam, Germany, will be joining other recent Roche acquisitions Bina Technologies and Genia Technologies.
Financial details were not disclosed.
Signature is a translational oncology and genomics company that develops large blood plasma and tissue biobanks in multiple cancers, including colorectal and lung, which are constructed from multicenter prospective clinical studies. Signature uses the samples from its biobanks along with accompanying clinical progression and genetic data to develop and validate circulating cell free DNA (cfDNA) tests.
"Biobanks play an important role in uncovering the cause or origin of disease such as cancer which is important in translational research and the development of personalized therapies for patients," said Roland Diggelmann, COO, Roche Diagnostics in a press release. "Signature represents a unique bridge between high value cancer biobanks and NGS assay development. Roche plans to leverage Signature's expertise in both of these areas to accelerate the development of targeted NGS-based diagnostics in the future. Biobanks can also be used for biomarker discovery and hypothesis testing with Pharma."