Quartz Bio SA supports Debiopharm Group™ precision medicine bioinformatics

Lausanne, Switzerland, July 4, 2013 – Debiopharm Group™ (Debiopharm), a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the development of prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs, today announced that they have signed a one-year collaboration agreement with Quartz Bio, the Clinical Bioinformatics Research Organization leader in precision biomarker discovery.

Under the research framework, Quartz Bio will apply its leading expertise in bioinformatics to support Debiopharm translational projects in terms of computational analyses and biomarker discovery. Projects are expected to range from preclinical Next-Generation Sequencing to clinical biomarker data analyses.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Debiopharm,” said Dr. Jerome Wojcik, CEO of Quartz Bio. “Debiopharm’s pioneering biomarker projects are a unique opportunity for Quartz Bio to contribute to the implementation of Precision Medicine, thus demonstrating that bioinformatics science can bring substantial benefits to patients”.

“We look forward to collaborating with Quartz Bio,” commented Dr. Hiroaki Tanaka, Director of Personalized Medicine at Debiopharm. “Their longstanding clinical bioinformatics experience made them an ideal partner to support our biomarker projects in our clinical trials and extract from data the relevant information required for personalized therapy development”.

About Quartz Bio
Quartz Bio SA is a clinical bioinformatics service company specialized in exploratory biomarker data analyses for the generation of precision medicine hypotheses. Quartz Bio provides modular data analysis solutions to the major steps of the biomarker development process. These include: biomarker study design, biomarker data quality control, statistical analysis and scientific reporting. The capital of the company is entirely owned by its employees, who are scientists from diverse educational backgrounds with a common track record of 6 to 10 years clinical bioinformatics experience in the pharmaceutical sector. For more information, please visit the company’s web site: www.quartzbio.com

About Debiopharm Group™
Debiopharm Group™ (Debiopharm) is a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the development of prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs. The group in-licenses and develops promising biological and small molecule drug candidates having reached clinical development phases I, II or III, as well as earlier stage candidates. It develops its products for global registration and access to the largest number of patients worldwide. The products are out-licensed to pharmaceutical partners for sales and marketing. Debiopharm is also active in the field of companion diagnostics to profit from the unique advantages of personalized medicine. Debiopharm independently funds the worldwide development of all of its products while providing expertise in pre-clinical and clinical trials, manufacturing, drug delivery and formulation, and regulatory affairs. For more information about Debiopharm Group™: www.debiopharm.com