Irish medtech firm Diaceutics signs major deal with US lab

Dundalk-based medtech firm Diaceutics has signed a multimillion euro deal with the third-largest full service clinical diagnostic laboratory in the United States to acquire data that will help pharmaceutical companies roll out new drugs.

New Jersey-headquartered BioReference Laboratories, which has an international presence in more than 50 countries, is to supply the Irish data insights and solutions company with testing data from some 300,000 healthcare providers that have access to more than 50,000 patient samples per day.

Industry insiders estimate the deal is worth between €5 million and €10 million.

The partnership is expected to help improve patient testing by ensuring that pharmaceutical companies better understand the testing patterns of physicians considering precision medicine therapies for patients.

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Diaceutics, which works with pharmaceutical firms on diagnostic testing and data analytics that brings more personalised medicine to patients, estimates that companies are missing out on more than 20 per cent of cancer patients every year in the US due to the challenging testing landscape.

Revenues jump

The company, which has seen revenues jump 60 per cent each year over the past three years, expects the market for its services, which helps companies better understand testing for biomarkers and specific illnesses, will be worth €4 billion by 2020.

The company has seen its revenue surge 60 per cent per year over the past three years. It has helped put in place structures that gave 48,000 cancer patients in the EU and US access to biomarker testing to ensure they have access to the right drugs. The firm predicts 70 per cent of new cancer drug launches will be diagnostic-dependent within the next five years.

"Diagnostic data from laboratories like BioReference helps pharmaceutical companies better understand the testing journey that patients go on in the often difficult search for a targeted therapy. That information allows pharma to pinpoint patients that need to be on a specific – and often life-changing – drug, accelerate speed to market for new drugs and improve patient outcomes," said chief executive Peter Keeling.

Diaceutics, which recently announced plans to grow its workforce to 100 by the end of 2018, has a client list that includes Roche, Novartis, Amgen, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Pfizer, Merck, Takeda and AstraZenecca.

“We have seen first-hand the improved decision-making by our pharma clients when presented with the relevant data trends in specific disease areas. Enriching our real time and retrospective analytics with BioReference’s knowledge base allows us to further map the diagnostic journey of patients and help pharmaceutical companies better understand how testing impacts precision prescribing. With this information, we can simply enable better decision making and investment in patient, physician and laboratory education,” he added.