New exclusive partnership for COSMIC and Qiagen
COSMIC (Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer), a huge database curated by experts covering 71 million mutation mechanisms involved in over 1,500 human cancer types, and used by 20,000 cancer researchers around the world, today announces an exclusive multi-year partnership with Qiagen. This deal will mean that COSMIC as a global resource is sustained, grown, and protected making huge genomic data accessible to the people studying and curing cancer, whether they work in industry or academia. Qiagen will leverage its experienced software sales team and global customer network acting as a sole commercial distributor for the database. COSMIC revenues will be reinvested to support its continued growth.
“COSMIC is a huge database underpinning cancer precision medicine and we’re curating more information across genetic oncology than ever before,” said Dr Simon Forbes, Director of COSMIC at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Partnering with QIAGEN who have enormous expertise in global bioinformatic markets, we will sustain and grow this resource for everyone’s benefit. Together, we’re making huge genomic data increasingly valuable and accessible to the people curing cancer, whether they be in industry, academia or healthcare, ensuring precision medicine is brought to maturity.”
The Technology Translation Team at Sanger has played an important role in helping to develop COSMIC into the world-leading information resource that it is today. In 2014, they were instrumental in setting up a novel licensing strategy that enabled the resource to be significantly expanded and refined to suit the needs of its industrial and academic users. This latest development demonstrates the commitment of the Sanger Institute and its Technology Transfer Team to provide the global cancer researcher base with high-quality data at scale, and its mission to create societal benefit through science and innovation.
“We are delighted to partner with QIAGEN who are world leaders in the commercial distribution of globally significant data resources like COSMIC,” said Dr Adrian Ibrahim, Head of Technology Transfer and Business Development at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Through this partnership, we will further pursue our vision to enable the global cancer research, discovery, and development community with the gold standard resource that COSMIC represents, whilst reaffirming our commitment to maintain free access to not-for-profit academic users.”
Read the full Press Release here
