January 10, 2023
Redwood City, California, January 10, 2022 – QIAGEN Digital Insights, the bioinformatics division of QIAGEN, today announced that Munich Leukemia Laboratory, one of the world’s largest leukemia laboratories, has selected QIAGEN Clinical Insights (QCI) Interpret to support the analysis, interpretation, and reporting of Illumina’s TruSight Oncology 500 Assay, a comprehensive genomic profiling test for solid tumors.
The selection of QCI Interpret adds to a growing number of diagnostic labs around the world who use the clinical decision support platform, which recently surpassed over 3 million NGS patient test cases analyzed and interpreted—a record higher than any other commercial offerings.
As a key reference lab for Europe, Munich Leukemia Laboratory receives over 100,000 samples each year, providing full-service diagnostics of leukemias and lymphomas. In 2021, the company expanded its menu offering to include pan-cancer diagnostic testing for solid tumors using Illumina’s TruSight Oncology 500, an assay targeting 523 genes for assessment of all DNA and RNA variant types implicated in solid tumors, including microsatellite instability (MSI) and tumor mutational burden (TMB). As a result, the company needed a clinical decision support solution that could easily integrate into the existing Laboratory Information Management System and provide the knowledge and evidence needed for effective variant interpretation.
“The adoption of QCI Interpret has advanced our ability to efficiently classify somatic variants in solid tumors, confidently match therapies to biomarkers, and identify clinical trials located near a patient’s home—regardless of where they live in Europe,” said Manja Meggendorfer, PhD, Head of Molecular Genetics, Munich Leukemia Laboratory. “This highly customized informatics solution supports competitive turnaround time of matched precision medicine options to ordering clinicians for their cancer patients.”
QCI Interpret is a clinical decision support software powered by augmented molecular intelligence (AMI), a content and data curation approach that combines computing intelligence and human expertise to advance and accelerate confident clinical decision-making. A key differentiator of the software, the application of AMI leverages machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to efficiently identify, extract and align evidence from scientific literature, clinical practice guidelines and over 40 public and proprietary databases in the QIAGEN Knowledge Base—the industry’s most comprehensive, manually curated resource with weekly updates. QCI Interpret then uses the content from the QIAGEN Knowledge Base to dynamically compute pathogenicity and actionability based on the AMP/ASCO/CAP or ACMG/AMP guidelines for every variant in over 31,000 cancer types with full transparency. To simplify and accelerate interpretation, users have access to over 320,000 preformulated, oncologist-reviewed variant impact summaries to build custom, patient-specific reports with the latest diagnostic and prognostic information, as well as biomarker-directed therapies and clinical trials.
“Our decision to use QCI Interpret as our informatics solution is two-fold,” says Torsten Haferlach, MD, PhD, CEO, Munich Leukemia Laboratory. “First, the content of the QIAGEN Knowledge Base is current, comprehensive, and reviewed by MD and PhD curators to certify relevancy and consistency. Secondly, the solution combines the DNA and RNA analysis into a single, custom report that can be directly accessed by the ordering physician through our customer portal.”
To meet the unique needs of Munich Leukemia Laboratory, which leverages extensive automation and digitalization, QIAGEN Digital Insights extended QCI Interpret to enable automatic upload of final reports into the company’s digital laboratory information system (LIS) and subsequently to the customer portal (order entry and report portal) for rapid turn-around and access. Through the customer portal, physicians can submit orders, upload relevant patient information, track the processing status, and access the patient’s final report from QCI Interpret in PDF format. This capability streamlines and accelerates the test request and reporting process.
“Selection of QCI Interpret by Munich Leukemia Laboratory is yet another demonstration of QIAGEN’s leadership in clinical interpretation,” said Jonathan Sheldon, Senior VP of QIAGEN, QIAGEN Digital Insights. “The flexibility of our QCI Interpret solution, combined with the quality of our knowledge is why the top and largest clinical testing labs in the world trust and rely on QCI Interpret for their interpretation and reporting needs.”
As more vendors enter the market, the customer demand towards dedicated applications and solutions considering front end sample processing and downstream bioinformatics will further accelerate. QIAGEN has built an extensive NGS application and portfolio strength aligned with key market drivers to fulfill these demands and will continue to invest in expanding to support the industry growth and complete Sample to Insight solutions for its customers and partners.
Learn more about the QCI Interpret for Oncology here.
About QIAGEN Digital Insights
QIAGEN Digital Insights, the bioinformatics business of QIAGEN, is the leading provider of genomic and clinical knowledge, analysis and interpretation tools and services for scientists and clinicians. We have over 25 years of experience in the industry, 90,000 users worldwide, over 100,000 citations in scientific papers, more than 3 million profiled patient cases and over 40 billion scientific data points. Discover our portfolio of expertly curated genomic and clinical knowledge solutions as well as bioinformatics software and services for efficient data management, sharing and actionable insights. Learn more at https://digitalinsights.qiagen.com/.
About QIAGEN
QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. Our sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA and proteins from blood, tissue and other materials. Assay technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. Bioinformatics software and knowledge bases interpret data to report relevant, actionable insights. Automation solutions tie these together in seamless and cost-effective workflows. QIAGEN provides solutions to more than 500,000 customers around the world in molecular diagnostics (human healthcare), Applied Testing (primarily forensics), Pharma (pharma and biotech companies) and Academia (life sciences research). As of March 31, 2022, QIAGEN employed more than 6,000 people in over 35 locations worldwide. Further information can be found at https://www.qiagen.com/.
About Munich Leukemia Laboratory
The Munich Leukemia Laboratory is a nationally as well as internationally active laboratory working to diagnose cases of leukemia and lymphoma. The expertise embedded within the company along with its excellent quality assurance and turnaround times guarantee optimal test procedures for suspected diagnoses of leukemia or lymphoma. In addition, modern equipment and state-of-the-art analysis methods lead to optimal diagnostics for patients. Munich Leukemia Laboratory is one of the world’s leading companies when it comes to the wide range of its diagnostics portfolio. The combination of interconnected methods of cytomorphology, chromosome analysis, FISH, immunophenotyping, and a large number of molecular genetic test procedures makes it possible to gain a comprehensive picture of the existing illness in order to subsequently ensure optimal, customized medical treatment for patients. Recently, it entered the solid tumor diagnostics with its subsidiary MLLseq.
More information can be found at www.mll.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
Certain statements contained in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to QIAGEN’s products, collaborations markets, strategy or operating results, including without limitation its expected adjusted net sales and adjusted diluted earnings results, are forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with management of growth and international operations (including the effects of currency fluctuations, regulatory processes and dependence on logistics), variability of operating results and allocations between customer classes, the commercial development of markets for our products to customers in academia, pharma, applied testing and molecular diagnostics; changing relationships with customers, suppliers and strategic partners; competition; rapid or unexpected changes in technologies; fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN’s products (including fluctuations due to general economic conditions, the level and timing of customers’ funding, budgets and other factors); our ability to obtain regulatory approval of our products; difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN’s products to integrated solutions and producing such products; the ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to differentiate and protect our products from competitors’ products; market acceptance of QIAGEN’s new products and the integration of acquired technologies and businesses. For further information, please refer to the discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
