Roche and ARK agree distribution deal for methotrexate test

Roche has agreed a deal with ARK Diagnostics that will enable compatibility between the latter company's methotrexate testing solution and Roche technology.

The deal will enable laboratories to integrate ARK's ,ethotrexate test into the Roche therapeutic drug monitoring menu for its Cobas C 501 and Cobas C 502 clinical chemistry analysers.

These methotrexate Cobas C test kits are used to provide information to help healthcare professionals manage patients on cancer drug therapy. ARK will begin distributing the kits to Roche customers this month.

It comes as part of wider efforts by Roche to find new ways of offering a fuller and more comprehensive therapeutic drug monitoring portfolio.

Randy Pritchard, senior vice-president of Roche Professional Diagnostics, said: "The addition of ARK's methotrexate test to the Roche test menu will provide access for our customers to a specialized test for cancer drug monitoring with proven quality and performance."

This follows the introduction of the firm's Cobas 6800 and 8800 systems, two new molecular testing devices for blood and plasma donor screening, last month.