Roche Diagnostics acquires CAPP Medical

Roche Diagnostics has announced that it has acquired genomics research company CAPP Medical, which was founded by Stanford University oncologists and industry veterans.

The company was created to advance the development of technology for cancer screening and monitoring through detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in blood, which will help to strengthen Roche's oncology translational research pipeline.

CAPP Medical's technology is designed to isolate and quantify small amounts of ctDNA through a blood sample, which could potentially be used for cancer therapy selection and monitoring tumour response and resistance to treatment.

Roland Diggelmann, chief operating officer of Roche, said his firm is focused on high quality next generation sequencing (NGS) assays, as these can significantly advance the time of cancer diagnosis and change routine cancer diagnostic monitoring.

He added: "CAPP Medical's technology for detecting the circulating cancer DNA from blood has the potential to further strengthen Roche's diagnostic offerings for patients and will provide valuable clinical trial support for pharma oncology pipelines."

Ashok Krishnamurthi, chief executive officer of CAPP Medical, believes that the acquisition highlights Roche's commitment to advancing cancer testing and he feels the firm is the best suited business to advance the technology to release its full potential.