Stilla Technologies and Atila BioSystems to co-develop high-plex digital PCR kits for onocology

Stilla Technologies and Atila BioSystems today announced an agreement to market digital PCR kits and assays produced by Atila BioSystems for use on the naica® system (Stilla Technologies). The digital PCR kits, optimized specifically for use with the 6-color naica® system, will be utilized for the detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) from liquid biopsy samples taken from patients with high-occurring cancer indications such as breast, lung, melanoma, prostate, and colorectal cancers.

The co-labeled digital PCR kits will be promoted globally by Atila and Stilla and will be designed For Research Use Only (RUO) applications.

“We are witnessing the continued promise, utility, and proliferation of digital PCR in the analysis of liquid biopsies for use in therapeutic development and in patient diagnosis and monitoring of oncological disease,” says Philippe Mourère, President and CEO of Stilla Technologies. “Co-developing products with a strong assay partner in Atila will allow highly standardized, fully optimized digital PCR liquid biopsy kits get into the hands of researchers who are working hard to decentralize such testing and bring personalized treatment into their clinical set up.”

In addition to the commercialization of the oncology kits, Stilla and Atila plan to jointly showcase their developments at the upcoming AACR Annual Meeting 2023 in Orlando, FL, in a scientific poster, “Enabling higher sensitivity liquid biopsies with multiplex digital PCR NSCLC-relevant drug resistance panels,” which will demonstrate the coverage, precision, and sensitivity of high-plex digital PCR for the analysis of liquid biopsies.

“Among digital PCR instruments, Stilla’s naica® system offers the industry’s highest level of multiplexing and sensitivity, making the platform ideally suited to detect rare mutations in complex samples,” notes Youxiang Wang, PhD, CEO at Atila BioSystems. “The naica® system set itself apart for these types of samples through its software capabilities, particularly its compensation matrix, which affords unsurpassed control over specificity and the ability to detect false positives, ultimately providing researchers with more precise readouts when using our assays.”