Avesthagen has entered into a four-year strategic alliance with Wipro for making its genetic testing portfolio commercial. The portfolio includes genome panels offering highly specific, disease-centric analysis for conditions including cancers, neuro-degenerative diseases, autoimmune disorders and rare disease conditions, a company statement notified.
Together, Avesthagen and Wipro will execute the project titled, “Cancer Risk Assessed by NGS profiling of Circulating free DNA and RNA for Lung Cancer Project-related Genomics Sequencing services.” The project will be jointly led by Avesthagen and Wipro where Wipro’s state-of-the-art lifesciences lab will perform initial processing of the samples, generate data on the latest next-generation sequencing platforms, compile genomic sequences and analyse detailed molecular information using computational AI/ML-based tools, the statement added.
It also said that Wipro’s expertise across multi-disciplinary areas of genomics and biomarker discovery will help Avesthagen in building well-regulated workflows during the development of CALiBRx gene panels. The tests would be predominantly offered in superspecialty clinics and hospitals that focus on oncological disorders. It will later strategically release diagnostic tools that address upper respiratory cancers such as head, neck and oesophageal cancers. In the medium- and long-term, the project would lead to a new generation of genome-led medicine.
CALiBRx- the 624 gene panel – will be available in the market from Q3 2022 and will target cancers and neurological conditions. It presents a targeted screening approach of 624 genes implicated in oncological conditions, it further mentioned.
“Genomics-based innovation is part of Avesthagen’s DNA. The Avestagenome Project that we started in 2008 is the largest epidemiological study ever conducted on a consanguineous population worldwide. The diagnostic tools portfolio that we are launching today is the result of the collective knowledge we have amassed since and are looking forward to working with Wipro to take clinical genetics-based precision diagnostics to the people,” said Dr Villoo Morawala-Patell, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, Avesthagen, in the statement.
“We are excited to join forces with Avesthagen Limited. This partnership will leverage our Tarang Lifesciences labs and R&D expertise, with the goal of identifying new disease specific biomarkers, improving genomic diversity, better healthcare outcomes and smart precision therapeutics,” said Srikumar Rao, General Manager and Delivery Leader, Wipro Engineering, Wipro.
The India launch will be followed by expansion in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the MENA region in Q4 2022. Over the next decade, it will license its IP and product outcomes to digital health, pharma and food companies and Fortune 500 biotech companies, the statement concluded.