Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and OPKO Health Collaborate on Genomics

October 13, 2015 8:00am EDT

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New Tumor Sequencing Panel Aims to Improve Patient Care and Accelerate

Discovery

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

OPKO Health, Inc. (NYSE:OPK) announced today a collaboration among its

subsidiary, BioReference Laboratories, Inc., the Department of

Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer

Center (VICC) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to leverage

large scale genomics testing for optimal cancer care. Each of the

organizations has committed to providing its complementary expertise

with the goal of introducing genomic testing that is cost effective and

increases patient accessibility to the newest cancer therapies.

VUMC is recognized nationally for clinical and management excellence by

such organizations as U.S. News and World Report , Leapfrog, and

Truven (formerly Thomson Reuters) Top 100 Hospitals. VICC, a

NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, is a recognized leader in

precision medicine with active clinical trials involving biomarker

assessment. BioReference Laboratories, through its business units,

GenPath Oncology and GeneDx, has extensive experience in next-generation

sequencing (NGS) in oncology.

The first initiative in this multi-year collaboration is a 300+ gene NGS

panel for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies that will be

available in early 2016 for clinical care. The panel design was jointly

developed by VICC/VUMC pathologists, oncologists, and cancer researchers

and scientists at BioReference Laboratories. This NGS assay will target

single nucleotide variants, insertions and deletions, copy number

variants, and gene fusions specifically in genomic areas that are

druggable.

“Cancer treatment has been revolutionized through the use of advanced

diagnostics identifying biomarkers that allow individualized treatment

plans to improve patient care. We saw a unique opportunity to connect

Vanderbilt’s clinical expertise with BioReference’s NGS capabilities in

order to develop sensitive and clinically useful genomic solutions. The

collaborative academic-industry partnership will benefit patients at

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, our regional hospitals and

patients worldwide,” said Mary Zutter, M.D., Professor of Pathology,

Microbiology and Immunology, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Integrative

Diagnostics at Vanderbilt.

“Our collaboration with Vanderbilt accelerates the utilization of

genomic testing into clinical care, fosters clinical trial recruitment

and enables scientific discovery in cancer genetics,” stated Marc D.

Grodman, M.D., CEO of BioReference Laboratories. “Genomic testing has

clearly been shown to be clinically useful in patient management, but is

often cost prohibitive. We will provide cost effective testing that is

able to be run on small samples. Vanderbilt has a long tradition of

cutting-edge genomic solutions and an extensive clinical trial network

in precision medicine that we will be able to further support through

this collaboration. In addition, our advanced genomic testing will

enhance Vanderbilt’s translational efforts in the fields of drug

discovery and efficacy.”

Through this collaboration, scientists are working on several other

diagnostic assays to equip clinicians with the genetic knowledge they

need to treat patients. “We see unmet needs for genomic solutions in

areas such as detecting drug resistance markers in plasma and panel

based minimal residual disease monitoring. The collaboration allows each

organization to bring a highly specialized skill set together with the

shared vision of accelerating the development of clinically useful

testing,” said Robert Daber, Ph.D., Vice President of Genomic

Operations, Development and Director of Cancer Genomics at BioReference

Laboratories.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements," as that

term is defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of

1995 (PSLRA), which statements may be identified by words such as

"expects," "plans," "projects," "will," "may," "anticipates,"

"believes," "should," "intends," "estimates," and other words of similar

meaning, including statements regarding expected benefits of the

collaboration with Vanderbilt, that BioReference’s array of genomics

data will prove valuable in enhancing drug discovery and clinical trial

programs, whether the NGS panel for solid tumors and hematologic

malignancies will be available in early 2016 for clinical care, whether

the utilization of genomic testing in clinical care will foster trial

recruitment and enable scientific discovery in cancer genetics, as well

as other non-historical statements about our expectations, beliefs or

intentions regarding our business, technologies and products, financial

condition, strategies or prospects. Many factors could cause our actual

activities or results to differ materially from the activities and

results anticipated in forward-looking statements. These factors include

those described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange

Commission, as well as the risks inherent in funding, developing and

obtaining regulatory approvals of new, commercially-viable and

competitive products and treatments. In addition, forward-looking

statements may also be adversely affected by general market factors,

competitive product development, product availability, federal and state

regulations and legislation, the regulatory process for new products and

indications, manufacturing issues that may arise, patent positions and

litigation, among other factors. The forward-looking statements

contained in this press release speak only as of the date the statements

were made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update

forward-looking statements. We intend that all forward-looking

statements be subject to the safe-harbor provisions of the PSLRA.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151013005624/en/

Company

OPKO Health, Inc.

Tara Mackay, 305-575-4100

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Source: OPKO Health, Inc.

Released October 13, 2015

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