Sequenom, Inc., a life sciences company committed to enabling healthier lives through the development of innovative products and services, has entered into a clinical collaboration with Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH). SNUH and Sequenom will collaborate to profile circulating cell-free tumor DNA in blood in a series of research studies targeting several hundred patients across a wide variety of cancer types.

"We are looking forward to collaborating with Sequenom on the clinical evaluation of their new liquid biopsy assay," said Yung-Jue Bang, MD, PhD, Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital. "We believe that liquid biopsy has the potential to significantly improve clinical care in a variety of cancer management settings."

"This is Sequenom's first oncology collaboration with a leading medical center in Asia," said Daniel Grosu, M.D., chief medical officer at Sequenom.

"We are excited to work with SNUH on evaluating our liquid biopsy assay in a substantial number of clinical samples. Among other objectives, this study will enable us to comprehensively analyze the genomic alterations concordance between tissue and blood in different cancers."

Sequenom is currently developing a Research Use Only (RUO) assay with an initial focus on the detection and molecular profiling of late stage non-hematologic malignancies in settings where tissue biopsies are not available or are too risky to obtain. The assay will cover a breadth of cancer types by analyzing over 100 cancer-related genes that are included in professional society guidelines, linked to targeted therapies currently in clinical trials, or part of well-documented cancer pathways. This clinical research study will aim to enroll several hundred patients across 10 different cancer types.