EKF Diagnostics has announced a new colon cancer-focused collaboration between its subsidiary Selah Genomics and Greenville Health System, DecisionQ and BD.

The four-way collaboration is expected to run for 18 months and will combine classic clinical annotations with proprietary next-generation sequencing technology and AI-based decision support algorithms to improve clinical decision support in the treatment of colon cancer patients.

“EKF Diagnostics has entered into a four-way collaboration aimed at developing ways of improving clinical decision-making in the treatment of colon cancer.“

Selah Genomics will first determine the genetic profiles of tumour samples provided by Greenville Health System, with DecisionQ to employ its advanced machine-learning platform to integrate genetic profile data with clinical annotations.

The research project is being funded in part by BD, in exchange for the first opportunity to license the technology. After the initial collaboration, a clinical trial will be held to validate the research and affirm the effectiveness of the new system.

Michael Bolick, chief executive officer of Selah Genomics, said: "Leveraging particular contributions from each of our partners, we have a unique opportunity to fast-track our development timelines across an array of targets."

This comes after EKF recently agreed to collaborate with Angle on a liquid biopsy development that will combine their Parsortix and PointMan technologies.