Collaboration Is Key To The Future Of Cancer Research And Innovation
Advances in next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have enabled cancer research innovations like improvements in minimal residual disease (MRD) identification and the discovery of drugs that target genetic tumor abnormalities. These approaches were backed by collaborations between developers and genomic technology suppliers who combined their scientific expertise and manufacturing capabilities to accelerate the pace of cancer research for the patients they serve.
When forming these alliances, cancer researchers are faced with a growing selection of NGS providers, some of which pitch what they consider to be disruptive solutions. These alternative solutions can, at times, focus more on speed and cost—a concept suggesting that quicker insights will reduce the need for additional sequencing, equating to more tests performed and rapid breakthroughs to market.
No doubt, speed and efficiency matter. But prioritizing 'fast and new' can be detrimental to driving cancer research innovation. In my opinion, a more effective approach is partnership: entering strategic relationships with genomic providers that have the quality, knowledge and capabilities to design optimized assays that generate reproducible results, making them your trusted partner from discovery through clinical development.
How Researchers Are Leveraging Partnerships
The key to obtaining better, more actionable insights from NGS assays is to create flexible yet optimized end-to-end workflows from library preparation to data analysis. These workflows are all customized to the experiment at hand and led by an NGS expert who has both strong in-house capabilities and a track record of collaborating with partners that help solve labs' biggest challenges. This is not just about forming one strong alliance with an innovative technology provider—it's also about benefiting from that partner's wider network of collaborators. To streamline research, developers can work hand in hand with technology providers to create or optimize customized panels, adapters, library prep and other reagents for the most robust assay to fit their needs.
Among the many applications where it's vital to prioritize quality over speed in cancer research is the identification of MRD. Researchers use NGS to identify MRD by measuring circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) through the presence of low-frequency mutations that are known to be associated with the cancer type being studied. The MRD research and testing field is consistently growing as new genes of interest are found in blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. To support this research, developers are engaging with vendors to design new panels. Collaborations between the developers and their strategic partners also help establish high standards and metrics, so laboratories can maintain consistent data, resulting in the most reliable and confident insights possible.
The most effective collaborations benefit from enhancing their capabilities by embracing outside expertise. For instance, my company, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), deploys continuous improvement strategies. We also have a strategic alliance with a Bio-IT company so customers can pair insights obtained from secondary analysis platforms with tertiary variant annotation and reporting software to contextualize data for both known and newly discovered variants. Recently, we also formed an innovation hub to foster innovative ideas and advancements, and foster customer collaboration. By combining expertise, manufacturing and technology capabilities, genomics providers can stay at the forefront of emerging technologies, strengthen their own capabilities to support customers, and enhance their market knowledge.
Best Practices When Entering Partnerships With NGS Technology Providers
Cancer researchers must collaborate with their NGS suppliers to foster a more business-minded approach to accelerating innovation. To accomplish this, developers must view their suppliers as strategic partners and work in unison to leverage their expertise, domain knowledge and supply chain management. This comprehensive approach is beneficial for researchers: It ensures a supplier's capabilities closely align with their lab's scientific objectives, resulting in increased productivity, lower inventory costs and overall savings. View them as more than a transactional arrangement so that each party can appreciate the value of partnership to advance the industry and overcome hurdles with technology sharing, regulatory roadblocks and overall cost burden. As the partnership matures, there will be an upside, such as realizing the economic and business benefits that working together brings.
When evaluating expertise, experience matters. Third-party validation, proof-of-concept, comparative testing and a diverse customer base are a few ways to assess an NGS supplier's track record. These factors help distinguish a partner that can provide quality, expertise and consistency over a vendor that displays disruptive new technology. While not all partnerships will be a good fit, in order for them to succeed, it must be a win-win and provide a synergistic benefit that fills an industry, market or technology gap, solves a customer problem, or accelerates therapeutic development.
Conclusion
Strategic partnerships between developers and suppliers will continue to drive important innovations in NGS for cancer research. But to truly drive maximum benefit from these partnerships, developers who want to maximize insights should prioritize expertise and quality of data over disruptive new technology focused solely on speed and cost. For cancer patients awaiting new therapies, the stakes are too high.
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