CHICAGO – Roche is terminating its precision medicine partnership with software developer Syapse later this month, the pharmaceutical and diagnostics giant confirmed Friday. The deal will end Dec. 18, less than two years after it began, a company spokesperson said.
"As partnerships evolve, priorities and timelines can change, resulting in a reassessment of where to focus resources," Roche spokesperson Patrick Barth told GenomeWeb via email.Â
"Roche remains committed to helping patients and improving the practice of precision medicine. We continue to work with various partners across the healthcare system to build clinico-genomic platforms that leverage real-world data," Barth added.
Roche and Syapse announced a multiyear collaboration in January 2018 under the bright spotlight of the annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. Roche was to fund development of new analysis technologies using the existing Syapse platform in an effort to broaden access to precision medicine for cancer patients and their physicians.
The companies named four focus areas of their initial work. They had been seeking to develop a "learning health system" to provide physicians with continually updated evidence at the point of care; help care providers adapt to value-based care by understanding the economic consequences of their decisions; study patient-reported outcomes as they affect quality of life; and better match patients to clinical trials.
Roche and Syapse had left the door open to additional work, such as automating methods of measuring "real-world outcomes," they said at the time.
San Francisco-based Syapse did not respond to a request for comment on the dissolution of this partnership.
Since consummating the deal with Roche, Syapse has entered into several other partnerships in precision oncology with major pharma companies including Amgen and Pfizer.