QIAGEN (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced the availability of QCI Secondary Analysis, a cloud-based software-as-a-services (SaaS) solution enabling high-throughput secondary analysis for use with any clinical next-generation sequencing (NGS) data.
This turnkey service supports all QIAGEN QIAseq panels and seamlessly integrates with QCI Interpret, QIAGEN’s clinical variant interpretation and reporting software, to deliver highly scalable and customizable Sample to Insight workflows for oncology and inherited disease applications.
Typically, sequencing data is processed in three phases: After the signals registered by the NGS device have initially been translated into digital information (primary analysis), the DNA fragments encoded must be merged into a connected sequence and analyzed for variants in relation to a human reference genome (secondary analysis). In the third and final step (tertiary analysis), the identified variants are interpreted in the context of a specific clinical picture.
“Our goal is to empower molecular testing labs, regardless of size, budget, and experience, to leverage the power of comprehensive genomic information to advance precision medicine in every setting,” said Jonathan Sheldon, Senior Vice President of QIAGEN Digital Insights. “Due to NGS adoption barriers, including complexity and cost, a vast majority of small- to mid-size molecular laboratories rely on limited single-gene tests or choose to outsource sample testing for more comprehensive NGS analysis. However, with the launch of our new NGS secondary analysis software, we are making NGS testing more accessible to decentralized labs.”
“QCI Secondary Analysis is particularly valuable for labs looking to start running NGS-based tests because it’s a turnkey solution with easy-to-use features for the everyday lab technician,” said Can Koşukcu, Senior Bioinformatics Application Scientist of DiagnoSeq, an early-access customer of QCI Secondary Analysis. “With the availability of this new solution, QIAGEN has simplified the whole bioinformatics pipeline, providing an integrated workflow that minimizes resource investment and maximizes productivity.”
Expanding on the QIAGEN Clinical Insights (QCI) portfolio, QCI Secondary Analysis is designed to streamline analysis from a range of assay types, enabling labs to process more sequencing data without extensive time and resource investment. The turnkey solution is deployed on the QIAGEN Clinical Cloud, a secure cloud environment ensuring the highest degree of isolation and data protection, including compliance with ISO 27001, General Data Protect Regulation (GDPR), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) requirements.
While QCI Secondary Analysis is a plug-in-play solution that can support any panel, NGS instrument or software, the true value of this new offering is how it complements QIAGEN’s Sample to Insight portfolio. QCI Secondary Analysis is validated for use for all QIAseq panels, can be used with LightSpeed Clinical, a new software module within QIAGEN CLC Genomics Workbench Premium that enables ultra-fast NGS analysis, and directly integrates with QCI Interpret, QIAGEN’s variant interpretation and reporting platform that has been trusted to analyze and interpret more than 3.5 million NGS patient test cases worldwide.
QIAGEN Digital Insights solutions are used by national precision medicine programs worldwide to process over 850,000 clinical samples per year. They enable researchers and clinicians to access advanced tools for data processing and interpretation, empowering them to make well-informed decisions that lead to improved research results. QDI offers automated workflows, scalability, and efficient turnaround times, as well as solutions tailored to fit any lab, database, API, service, or workflow application.
More information on QIAGEN’s Sample to Insight solutions and the new QCI Secondary Analysis service can be found here.
