Roche handed HPV screening contract in the Netherlands

Roche has been selected to carry out a groundbreaking national cervical cancer screening programme in the Netherlands.

A five-year contract has been awarded by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment for implementation of the Cobas Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Test as the first-line, primary screening test in the programme.

The initiative is expected to start in the second half of 2016, and will make the Netherlands the first country in the world with an organised cervical screening programme to fully transition from the Pap test to primary HPV screening.

This decision is based on overwhelming evidence that this method offers significant improvements over more traditional Pap cytology screening due to its ability to detect more pre-cancerous disease.

Roland Diggelmann, chief operating officer of Roche Diagnostics, said: "We believe countries around the world will be looking toward the Netherlands as a potential model for how to best implement HPV primary screening to prevent cervical cancer."

This follows the recent European launch of the Cobas C513 analyser for risk identification, diagnosis and monitoring of people with diabetes.