Genetron Health Enters Exclusive Global Licensing Agreement with ImmuQuad Biotechnologies to Develop and Commercialize Minimal Residual Disease Assays in Hematologic Cancer

Collaboration and equity investment to provide Genetron Health with significant know-how in immune profiling and accelerate MRD product development in hematologic cancer

BEIJING, Oct. 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Genetron Holdings Limited (“Genetron Health” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: GTH), a leading precision oncology company in China that specializes in offering molecular profiling tests, early cancer screening products and companion diagnostics development, today announced that it has entered an exclusive licensing agreement with Hangzhou ImmuQuad Biotechnologies Co., Ltd (ImmuQuad) to develop and commercialize Seq-MRD, a diagnostic assay for the detection and monitoring of minimal residual disease (MRD) in select hematologic cancers.

Under the agreement, Genetron Health has exclusive rights to research, develop, commercialize, and manufacture MRD detection products or testing methods in select hematologic cancers using ImmuQuad’s Seq-MRD globally. ImmuQuad is eligible to receive high single-digit royalties on product sales for 10 years following commercialization. Separately, Genetron Health has made a minority equity investment in ImmuQuad.

ImmuQuad is a leading biotechnology company in China focused on developing an immune profiling platform for clinical diagnostics and life sciences research. The Company’s proprietary immunomics platform employs next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology to read and decode the diverse genetic code of a patient’s adaptive immune system and applies it in key areas, encompassing MRD monitoring for hematologic cancers (i.e. Seq-MRD), early disease detection and cellular therapies discovery and development.

MRD refers to the small number of cancer cells that can remain in a patient’s body after treatment and may eventually cause recurrence of the disease. Over the past few years, ImmuQuad has developed Seq-MRD as a clinical diagnostic tool to assess treatment effectiveness, provide ultra-sensitive monitoring and guide therapy maintenance intensity in hematologic cancer patients. ImmuQuad has validated Seq-MRD data with thousands of clinical samples covering primarily acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and multiple myeloma (MM).

Compared to the current standard of flow cytometry, Seq-MRD offers higher sensitivity and less required sample quantity, and is being further developed to offer significantly more convenient sample options via either bone marrow aspirate or peripheral blood. Genetron Health will conduct further validation of Seq-MRD in MM, chronic lymphoid leukemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) to expand the clinical utility to cover more patients. In China, the total addressable market is promising for Seq-MRD. In 2017, it was estimated that there were approximately 135,000 newly diagnosed patients with T or B-cell lymphoid malignancies, including about 80,000 in NHL, 35,000 in ALL and CLL, and around 20,000 in MM, respectively. In terms of prevalence, the total number of patients in these cancers were approximately two to four times of the newly diagnosed numbers¹, and Seq-MRD could become a standard MRD test in both new and existing patients. Outside of MRD, ImmuQuad’s immune profiling platform also bears significant market potential in early detection and drug discovery, and with Genetron’s equity investment, active R&D plans in these areas are currently underway.