Response Genetics, a CLIA-certified clinical laboratory focused on the development and sale of molecular diagnostic testing services for cancer, has acquired the core assets of Pathwork Diagnostics, including its FDA-cleared cancer diagnostic test, for a $200,000 cash payment and issuance of 500,000 shares of RGDX common stock. RGDX expects the acquisition to be accretive within its first full year of the purchase.
The acquired assets and associated test are based on a proprietary microarray platform and proprietary software used to compare the expression of 2,000 genes in a patient’s tumor with a panel of 15 known tumor types that represent 90 percent of all cancers.
“This acquisition is consistent with our goal to rapidly grow Response Genetics both organically and through a series of acquisitions,” Thomas Bologna, chairman and CEO of RGDX, stated in the press release. “Acquiring the assets of Pathwork Diagnostics adds proprietary, Medicare reimbursed content that we believe addresses the needs of both pathologists and oncologists, further expands both our technology and testing base, leverages our current infrastructure well and most importantly adds to the top line growth of our Dx business.”
RGDX notes that while the identity of most tumors can be determined using traditional methods, poorly differentiated or metastatic tumors with no clear primary origin are harder to diagnose. It is estimated that each year, up to 150,000 newly-diagnosed cancer patients in the United States may have a tumor for which the site of origin is uncertain after the initial diagnostic workup.
“Hard-to-identify tumors pose a significant clinical problem,” said Bologna. “The traditional approach – iterative rounds of testing – may take weeks and still not definitively identify the type of cancer present. This proprietary gene expression approach that we acquired reduces the time to diagnosis and increases physicians’ probability of reaching a definitive diagnosis, a necessary step in therapy selection, and it is well accepted that minimizing the waiting time before treatment maximizes patient outcomes.”
For more information, visit www.ResponseGenetics.com
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