Cerner, the Kansas City-based electronic health record (EHR) vendor, is teaming with Cambridge, Mass.-based Claritas Genomics, a clinical genetic diagnostic testing company, to integrate personalized medicine technology into clinical practice.
Cerner and Claritas will advance personalized medicine by combining next generation sequence (NGS)-based diagnostic testing technology into practice. The two companies plan to develop a scalable laboratory for molecular diagnostics, tailored to NGS workflows. With Cerner, Claritas is getting existing, scalable computing infrastructure which can integrate the ordering of genomic sequencing tests, laboratory processing, results interpretation, return of results to the clinician and incorporation of the result in the patient's EHR.
Cerner’s subsidiary, Cerner Capital has invested in the company and become a minority shareholder. Claritas formed as a spin out of Boston Children's Hospital. Early investors have also included Life Technologies and Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
"Cerner has long focused on the power of genomics and its impact to clinical processes, and this relationship will help advance the field and define a meaningful narrative in personalized medicine between the realms of research, diagnostics and clinical practice," Dick Flanigan, senior vice president with Cerner, said in a statement. “Claritas' focus on pediatrics is noteworthy, as that's when integrating genomics into clinical practice could be particularly impactful."
Other health IT vendors, such as IBM, as well as healthcare provider organizations such as MD Anderson have made similar pushes into linking clinical and genomic data.
