Konica Minolta Accelerates Expansion of Precision Medicine Business through Acquisition of US-basedPharmaceutical Research Company, Invicro

| 28 september 2017

Through molecular digital imaging technology, acquisition offers new value for drug discovery and development focused on the fields of immuno-oncology and neurodegenerative disease


Konica Minolta, Inc. (“Konica Minolta”) (TOKYO: 4902; ISIN: JP3300600008) and Boston-based Invicro LLC (“Invicro”) today announced that they have concluded an agreement whereby Konica Minolta will acquire Invicro, a leading provider of imaging services and software for research and drug development.

Invicro is a global Contract Research Organization (CRO) providing imaging services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry from early phase discovery through late-phase clinical trials. Invicro built these services on a software and analytics platform enabling streamlined large-scale data analytics across any quantitative biomarker readout.

This is another move by Konica Minolta to accelerate development of its exciting new medical platform to advance precision medicine, discover new therapeutic targets and develop new technologies and therapeutics. Earlier this summer Konica Minolta announced an agreement to purchase genetic testing and analysis company Ambry Genetics Corporation (“Ambry”). Precision medicine is an emerging approach to healthcare where genetic or molecular analysis is used to match patients with the most appropriate treatment for their specific disease. Precision medicine aims to improve a patients’ quality of life and save the healthcare system money by eliminating unnecessary and ineffective treatments, as well as assist pharmaceutical companies lower the cost and time involved in drug discovery.

 

No changes will be made to Invicro’s management structure, and Dr. Hoppin will remain on as CEO. Invicro’s business operations will continue as usual, including maintaining current staff and facilities as well as the same unwavering commitment to excellent service and scientific collaboration for sponsors while expanding the firm’s translational offering in medical imaging to pathology and genomics by joining Konica Minolta’s precision medicine platform.

Making R&D more efficient with imaging technologies

Identifying effective biomarkers of disease using imaging technology should accelerate drug discovery innovations by increasing the efficiency of pharmacological testing. Other prospective benefits of precision medicine are more accurate predictions of drug efficacy in clinical trials and more efficient drug development through shorter and smaller clinical trials. In recent years, digital imaging technology at the molecular scale has enabled visualization of potential medicines interacting with cells, helping pharmaceutical companies meet their growing need to measure efficacy through advanced image analysis data and create new surrogate endpoints for use during clinical trials.It is during this process that Invicro streamlines drug R&D by accurately inspecting, analyzing, and diagnosing data-rich images. Invicro has amassed a solid record and customer base with its high-value-added image processing, analyses and diagnostic services, primarily for the drug discovery screening and clinical trial programs of global pharmaceutical companies. The firm leverages artificial intelligence for its proprietary image processing and analysis techniques, and maintains a cloud-based data storage solution that manages huge volumes of information.

Konica Minolta maintains a range of vital bio-healthcare technologies for advanced drug discovery and clinical trials, including proprietary pathology offering High-Sensitivity Tissue Testing (HSTT). The company looks to draw on Invicro's strong connections among global pharmaceutical companies to supply them with applications for HSTT, together with Ambry's genetic diagnostics technologies, that will help to shorten R&D lead times and accelerate pharmaceutical development efforts.

HSTT is a proprietary technique that can accurately measure the location and quantity of proteins to optimize treatment with molecularly-targeted drugs. It offers far greater precision and accuracy than conventional immunostaining techniques. HSST can provide an early-stage, highly precise diagnosis and insights into a patient’s disease that can inform research and clinicians’ treatment plans.