SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & SALT LAKE CITY—CareDx, a leader in organ transplantation care, and IDbyDNA, which specializes in the use of precision metagenomics, joined forces in an exclusive partnership to develop metagenomic infectious disease testing specifically for transplant patients. The focus will be on developing and commercializing CareDx's AlloID, a tailored testing solution for infectious disease that can identify more than 100 pathogens and drug resistance in viruses and bacteria that are specific to organ transplant donors and recipients.
“CareDx is 100 percent dedicated to the transplant field,” said Reg Seeto, CEO of CareDx. “We believe our partnership with IDbyDNA can improve the standard of care for transplant patients with the ability to test and monitor for greater than 100 infectious disease pathogens. This will add to CareDx’s multi-modality approach with transplant surveillance.”
After receiving a transplant organ, recipients must take immunosuppression drugs for the rest of their life to reduce the risk that their immune system will reject the donor organ. As a result, their suppressed immune system leaves them at high risk of developing infections. The plan for this partnership is to combine AlloID with AlloSure and AlloMap for a holistic testing solution that can enable comprehensive, personalized care for transplant recipients. CareDx's AlloSure is a non-invasive, donor-derived cell-free DNA test, and AlloMap is a non-invasive gene expression profile test. The two tests have primary functions in kidney transplants and heart transplants, respectively.
“The combination of AlloID with CareDx’s current suite of surveillance tools brings us closer to the ultimate goal of non-invasive, multi-modality testing,” remarked Dr. Aruna Subramanian of Stanford. “I am excited for a transplant-specific, infectious disease testing solution that will enable us to diagnose patients with unusual and multidrug-resistant infections that standard testing panels would not detect. This solution could be a game-changer in how we care for our patients.”
For its part, IDbyDNA offers a precision metagenomics approach that features next-generation sequencing and is highly scalable, analyzing the genetic makeup of individual pathogen strains for better detection.
“Improved testing solutions are imperative, particularly for organ transplant patients who are highly immunocompromised,” Dr. Guochun Liao, founder and CEO of IDbyDNA, commented in a press release. “We are honored to support the mission of CareDx to help improve the pre- and post-transplant patient experience through pathogen detection technology. This is just the beginning of our joint effort to continue to revolutionize the way patients are managed before and after transplant.”
This news follows on the heels of a Jan. 4 announcement from CareDx that its AlloSeq HCT test had been selected as the primary solution for chimerism monitoring of stem cell transplant patients by the French National Blood Service, Établissement Français du Sang (EFS). CareDx won a two-year competitive tender under which it will supply AlloSeq HCT in collaboration with Laboratoires Nephrotek in France. The AlloSeq HCT solution is the first next-generation sequencing-based chimerism solution approved by the EFS.
“This success with the EFS tender showcases CareDx’s commitment to innovation for transplant patient care. We are excited to bring our solutions to stem cell transplant patients across France with the new solutions for NGS-based chimerism monitoring,” Seeto stated.
Photo courtesy of Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash
