Exclusive sales, marketing, support and distribution by QIAGEN
Including over 71 million cancer mutations, the COSMIC Database joins QIAGENs’ portfolio for cancer genomic analysis and interpretation
Agreement effective January 1, 2021
Redwood City, California, and Hilden, Germany, Jan 7, 2021 – QIAGEN announced today the exclusive rights to license and distribute the COSMIC Database for commercial use from the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The COSMIC Database joins QIAGEN’s leading portfolio of hereditary and somatic genetic mutation interpretation software and databases that includes IPA, HGMD, QCI Interpret, QCI Precision Insights and OmicSoft Oncoland. The extended portfolio now provides researchers and clinicians with options to access manually curated somatic mutation information as standalone databases, as an integrated Knowledge Base, through automated analysis software or as an interpretation service based on their unique needs and preferences.
Under the multi-year agreement, QIAGEN will leverage its experienced software sales team and global customer network to grow the adoption and utilization of the COSMIC Database. First line of support for all commercial enquiries will be managed through QIAGENs’ existing global support channel that currently assists over 90,000 users of existing QIAGEN software.
”The COSMIC Database is one of the premier somatic mutation databases. We are honored that the Wellcome Sanger Institute has entrusted QIAGEN to be its first commercial software partner and to grow its flagship database,” said Jonathan Sheldon, Senior Vice President of QIAGEN Digital Insights. “Our common focus on building and providing interpretation Knowledge Bases, combined with our respective leadership positions in delivering interpretation information makes this a natural partnership. Both Sanger and QIAGEN share the same philosophy to ensuring high quality knowledge access through carefully curated, compiled and standardized information. Our mutual customers can now benefit from over 30 years of QIAGEN Digital Insights global experience delivering and supporting industry leading products.”
The COSMIC Database is used by over 20,000 researchers, bioinformaticians and clinicians across the world who are interpreting cancer variants and understanding how these gene mutations drive cancer. The Database provides a single point of access to high quality mutation information carefully curated by expert postdoctoral scientists from over 27,000 scientific and clinical reports, and 500 independent cancer genome studies and international consortia, covering more than 1,500 cancer types at high resolution.
For academic research, access to the COSMIC Database is available at no charge from the Sanger Institute. For commercial use, users pay a license fee to access the Database, which is available for download, annotation and integration. COSMIC will remain a not-for-profit organization, with commercial profits invested in its growth and the Sanger Institute’s scientific programs.
“COSMIC is a huge database underpinning cancer precision medicine and we’re curating more information across genetic oncology than ever before,” said Dr Simon Forbes, Director of COSMIC at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Partnering with QIAGEN who have enormous expertise in global bioinformatic markets, we will sustain and grow this resource for everyone’s benefit. Together, we’re making huge genomic data increasingly valuable and accessible to the people curing cancer, whether they be in industry, academia or healthcare, ensuring precision medicine is brought to maturity.”
“We are delighted to partner with QIAGEN who are world leaders in the commercial distribution of globally significant data resources like COSMIC,” said Dr Adrian Ibrahim, Head of Technology Transfer and Business Development at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Through this partnership we will further pursue our vision to enable the global cancer research, discovery and development community with the gold standard resource that COSMIC represents, whilst reaffirming our commitment to maintain free access to not-for-profit academic users.”
About COSMIC
COSMIC – the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations In Cancer – is an expert-curated database describing the wide variety of genetic variations associated with all forms of human cancer. A key resource underpinning cancer genetic research, COSMIC provides large high-quality datasets, methods and graphics to scrutinise the genetics causing this disease, giving insights to pharmaceutical design and patient therapies. Built within the world-leading Sanger Institute (UK) to support global research, millions of mutations across thousands of diseases can be explored at https://cancer.sanger.ac.uk
Author / source: Qiagen /
