Source: © Robert Mizerek/Fotolia.com
Source: © Robert Mizerek/Fotolia.com

Agilent Technologies agreed to acquire Cartagenia, which provides software and services for clinical genetics and molecular pathology labs. Cartagenia, which has offices in Leuven, Belgium, and Boston,  provides software solutions for variant assessment and reporting of clinical genomics data from next-generation sequencing and microarrays.

Cartagenia's solutions are FDA-registered as exempt Class I Medical Devices in the U.S. and as Class I Medical Devices in Europe. The Cartagenia Bench platform enables technicians, lab directors, and clinicians to visualize, assess, and report clinical genetics data in the context of patient information.

With Cartagenia Bench, labs can build an internal knowledge base, build variant assessment SOPs, automate report drafting, and access a wide range of community-validated, private and premium content resources, whether for oncology or inherited disease, according to Agilent officials.

Cartagenia's platform also provides support for consortia of collaborating labs. Data-sharing has become an essential requirement for the community, and through private and public consortia, users can connect and pool their knowledge on rare diseases and actionable findings.

“Cartagenia's approach to enabling the interpretation of clinical genomics data is revolutionary,” said Jacob Thaysen, president of Agilent's diagnostics and genomics group. “We look forward to providing Cartagenia's software solutions to our clinical genetics and molecular oncology customers and to providing Cartagenia's existing customers with access to our global service and support network. Together, Agilent and Cartagenia can help remove bottlenecks inherent in analysis, interpretation and reporting clinical data-resulting in faster answers for patients.”

The acquisition is expected to be completed May 19., subject to local laws and regulations and customary closing conditions. Cartagenia employs 36 people, all of whom will be offered employment with Agilent.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Cartagenia

Cartagenia supplies variant assessment support and lab report automation software, database systems, and related services to genetic labs, pathology labs and clinicians, enabling them to perform clinically relevant genetic analyses quickly and efficiently, and offer patients and careers high-quality genetic interpretation and counseling.

Cartagenia Bench Lab allows automation of variant assessment protocols and lab report generation for structural and molecular variant assays such as Arrays, Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing. It supports communication with referring physicians, allows labs and clinicians to put variants in their clinical context, and supports confident data sharing.

The Cartagenia Bench platform is built in collaboration with genetics labs and clinical experts involved in routine medical practice. Because of this, Bench Lab addresses the specific needs of genetic diagnostic labs and clinicians.

Cartagenia Bench is built using a certified ISO13485 Quality Management System and is registered with the FDA as an exempt Class I Medical Device in the United States and as a Class I Medical Device in Europe in conformity with the essential requirements and provisions of the Council Directive 93/42/EEC.

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