Siemens to create companion diagnostic for Janssen drug

Siemens is to collaborate with pharmaceutical company Janssen to develop a companion diagnostic test for an investigational heart failure therapy.

The firm will work alongside Janssen to design immunoassay-based companion tests for use in clinical studies of the new drug, which targets autoantibodies directed against the human beta 1-adrenergic receptor that may contribute to the development of heart failure.

In parallel, Siemens will also be working to develop and validate an in vitro diagnostic test as a companion diagnostic for the therapeutic product, to be broadly commercialised on Siemens' central laboratory automated immunoassay systems.

Michael Reitermann, chief executive officer of Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, said: "As a leading clinical diagnostics company with the tools and technologies to help define the future of patient care, we are looking forward to collaborating with Janssen."

This comes after Siemens' medical solutions division provided a pair of investigational positron emission tomography tracers to Lilly for use in Alzheimer's disease research earlier this year.