Roche agrees new research alliance with UCLA

Roche has agreed a new collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) that will see it providing a range of cutting-edge technologies for use in research.

The agreement will see Roche supply equipment such as microarray systems, genetic expression profilers and exome sequencing technologies for use by UCLA's Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

It will also encompass the provision of advanced reagent, technologies and bioinformatics support for the discovery of new predictive biomarkers.

This alliance is expected to allow targets to be developed for future therapeutics and diagnostics, which could pave the way for clinical trials of innovative healthcare products in future.

Robert Yates, head of Roche Applied Science, said: "Our focus is to provide the scientific community with cutting-edge genomic tools that can rapidly advance their research."

This comes after the firm signed an agreement to supply diagnostic tests for use in Merck Sharpe and Dohme's cancer drug development projects earlier this week.