MDxHealth joined forces with Ghent University in Belgium to establish NXTGNT, a new center in Pharmaco (Epi)genomics. The center will bring together disease centered basic researchers, corresponding clinical validation teams, bioinformaticians, and (epi)genomic technology focused on the discovery of effective individualized epigenetic-based diagnostic and personalized therapeutic products.
As a result of several years of collaboration between the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics, NXTGNT, the biomarked valorization consortium teams, and MDxHealth, the new center is located at Ghent University within the laboratory of pharmaceutical biotechnology. The facility will house MDxHealth’s research team and lab equipment for development of epigenetic tests together with a Ghent University team. The facility works in close collaboration with the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics, located at the Faculty of BioEngeneering, providing experience in epigenetic characterization and computing and visualization of (epi)genomic datasets. The center is fully operational as of December 1.
The focuses of research are on the development of innovative and more efficient applications for personalized medicine, such as the identification of new potential targets for therapy, identification of new or more accurate biomarkers for risk stratification, and accelerate innovation through development and preclinical validation of new diagnostic and therapeutic products.
“There is a history of successful collaboration between MDxHealth and the University of Ghent, where much of the early epigenetics sequencing work on our biomarkers was conducted,” said Dr. Jan Groen CEO of MDxHealth. “As more drugs are being developed alongside companion tests, there is a growing need for novel technologies, biomarkers, and assays. We believe our experience in successfully developing personalized cancer epigenetic tests combined with the sequencing, bioinformatics, and methylome analysis expertise contained in the new center will prove extremely attractive to the pharmaceutical industry.”
MDxHealth is a molecular diagnostics company that develops and commercializes epigenetics test to support cancer treatment.
