Biocartis, Wondfo Announce Chinese Joint Venture

Biocartis announced on Sunday it has partnered with Guangzhou, China-based Wondfo Biotech to form a joint venture to commercialize the Idylla platform in China.
 
Under the terms of the deal, which focuses on oncology, the two companies will share a 50/50-owned joint venture that will license Biocartis' Idylla platform in China. In order to fund initial product registration, manufacturing, commercialization, and other efforts, both parties will provide a total of €14M ($16.2 million) of equity funding over several tranches.
 
The joint venture is expected to launch its operational activities toward the end of 2018, Biocartis said.
 
The company said that the Idylla platform is expected to provide Chinese laboratories and hospitals with fast and easy access to molecular biomarker information, covering the entire process from sample to result in two and half hours. The firm's platform analyzes both RNA and DNA and directly processes solid and liquid biopsy sample types.
 
"With Wondfo, we team up with a partner that has deep knowledge and experience of the Chinese diagnostic market," Biocartis CEO Herman Verrelst said in a statement. "The announcement today is … a first important step in unlocking Idylla's commercial potential in China that will provide a broader cancer patient population with access to personalized medicines."
 
"Through our collaboration with Biocartis, Wondfo will be the first to introduce the rapid, high precision MDx testing concept into the precision medicine field in China," Wondfo Board Chairman Jihua Wang added.
 
Biocartis announced last week that it had received a worldwide license for EGFR ectodomain mutation detection, which has been shown to determine response to targeted therapy for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.