Utrecht and Qingdao, Sep 4th, 2020 - HubrechtOrganoid Technology (HUB) and BGI-Qingdao announced today that they have signeda Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly establish a Next GenerationDiagnostics (NGD) center to improve personalized care, better treatments andcure as well as faster development of new safe medicines in China. The signingceremony was conducted online earlier today in the Netherlands and China.
Withcomplementary expertise and technology from both sides, HUB and BGI will furtherdevelop and implement HUB Organoid Technology as predictive diagnostic testsallowing for accurate patient specific prediction of treatment responsesinitially with focus on cancer.
According tothe MoU, HUB and BGI will establish a HUB-BGI Diagnostic Center in China.Strategic objectives include further development of predictive diagnosticsbased on HUB’s proprietary Organoid Technology. The collaboration encompasses integrationof some of their respective technologies in particular BGI’s Next GenerationSequencing technology (NGS) and HUB Organoid Technology, to develop and improveNGD as an important tool to advance health care services by supporting clinicaldecisions for cancer patients in China.
“We aredelighted to have BGI, a world leader in genomics and personalizedtechnologies, as our partner in China. And in collaboration with all of ourChinese partners, we aim to develop the joint center to a leading serviceprovider in personalized diagnostics for clinical use, as well as a center of researchand innovation.” said Dr. Robert Vries, Chief Executive Officer of HUB.
“It is our pleasure to establish a partnershipwith HUB, a cutting-edge biotech company that has invented and developed manyorganoid technologies based-on patient-derived adult stem cells. Together withHUB, we will apply and further develop the organoid technologies as a ‘disease-in-a-dish’to improve disease diagnosis and treatments in China. We expect that thecollaboration will potentially benefit our world health system as well.” Said Mr. Junnian Liu, General Manager and Executive Director ofBGI-Qiangdao.
About HUB
HUB is a Dutchcompany that exploits the pioneering work of Prof. Dr. Hans Clevers, Hubrecht Institute, who discovered the HUB OrganoidTechnology to grow ‘mini-organs’ – organoids – from patient-derived adult stemcells. HUB Organoids perform as “Patients in the Lab” and allow a better andmore precise understanding of tumor heterogeneity and patient drug response. Thistechnology is, inter alia, used to establish patient derived organoidsrepresenting diseases such as cancer and to test these to assess differenttreatments options. HUB provides preclinical and clinical HUB OrganoidTechnology services to academia, hospitals, and the pharma/biotech industry.
More infoat: www.huborganoids.nl.
About BGI
BGI is acompany that develops and provides genomic research, development, innovation,and services globally. One of BGI’s platforms provides genetic profiling ofpatient samples to support treatment decisions by physicians and clinicians.BGI´s Next Generation Sequencing technology is widely used for this service.