Diagnostics R & D

Roche – as the world leader in in vitro diagnostics- has accepted the challenge of managing the vast and continually expanding volume of molecular insights and translating it into products with high medical value for physicians and patients.

For the first time in the history of medical science diagnosis and therapy are meeting on common ground – the molecular level. Today molecular diagnostics and the discovery and validation of biomarkers is essential to realising the promise of personalised healthcare.

In pharmaceutical R & D they have many uses, from identifying new therapeutic targets and screening out unpromising drug candidates to selecting appropriate patient populations for clinical trials. In the clinic, biomarker tests increasingly provide invaluable information for early diagnosis and about disease predisposition, prognosis and the likelihood of treatment response.

Every drug being developed at Roche has a biomarker programme associated with it, and Diagnostics expertise and advice are made available for each of these programmes.

Given the Pharmaceuticals Division’s strong oncology portfolio, identifying and validating biomarkers to support the use of Roche’s marketed and developmental cancer medicines is naturally a major focus of research.

Roche Professional Diagnostics

R&D in Roche Professional Diagnostics contributes to meeting healthcare professionals' needs by designing tailor-made, integrated diagnostic solutions. Development activities include rare reagents, novel assays, innovative instruments, and information technology. Next generation immunochemistry platforms, protein-chip instruments and clinical chemistry systems for the lab and point-of-care are crucial elements of the research and development pipeline.

Roche Diabetes Care

Roche Diabetes Care aims to empower people with diabetes to live active and close to normal lives despite their condition and to actively engage within their diabetes management regimens. Thus it is key to us to provide innovative solutions for comprehensive diabetes management to both customer groups – people with diabetes and healthcare professionals. One focus of Roche Diabetes Care’s R&D team is on further simplifying the application of medical devices. Another important goal of Roche Diabetes Care’s R&D efforts is to combine powerful technical components to form integrated and effective diabetes management solutions. Moreover, the business unit continues to invest in clinical trials to provide evidence-based diabetes management concepts and solutions for a continuous and sustainable improvement of diabetes care.

Roche Molecular Diagnostics

The research team develops tools for molecular diagnostic profiling, and discovers and validates molecular markers that can be used to:

• Identify patients with disease predisposition
• Conclusively identify disease or differentiate disease subtypes and prognosis
• Select best medicines, titrate dosage, minimising the likelihood of adverse events, and predict therapy response
• Monitor treatment efficacy
• Ensure the safety of the blood supply

Roche Applied Science

The business area is looking into cutting-edge solutions (technologies, reagents and instruments) to support the life science research community. Roche Applied Science´s product portfolio and capabilities are especially strong in genomics and cell biology, sciences that are transforming our understanding and will impact the treatment of disease. The company offers reagents and systems for e.g. next generation sequencing, automated nucleic acid purification, real-time PCR, real-time label-free cellular analysis and cell invasion/migration studies. Furthermore, Roche Applied Science is a supplier of high-density microarrays and raw biomaterials. The company products are widely used in basic research, pharma R&D and bio-manufacturing worldwide. The business area has also stepped up to contribute to the global Roche Personalised Healthcare strategy by developing tests with potential for diagnostic applications or assay systems that may facilitate drug development, particularly in oncology and inflammatory diseases.

Roche Tissue Diagnostics

R&D at Ventana is divided into two distinct, but complementary teams, discovery and development. Within discovery there are key initiatives that include core research/discovery that encompass chemistry, multiplexing, molecular and ddvanced systems. As new technologies are proven to be feasible by the Discovery team, they are transferred to the development team for incorporation into new products. Within development, key initiatives focus on product development including Lean Workflow Solutions, automation platforms, IHC assay development, ISH assay development and detection system (reagent) development.