January is cervical cancer awareness month. Roche is committed to cervical cancer prevention and is proud to announce that the new Roche cobas® HPV assay for use on the cobas® 6800/8800 Systems is now Health Canada approved

• More than 99 percent of cervical cancers are caused by a persistent high-risk HPV infection¹
• cobas HPV assay helps to provide critical screening in identifying women at risk, before pre-cancer or cancer develops
• cobas 6800/8800 Systems deliver full automation, helping laboratories meet the throughput that high volume, HPV DNA screening programs demand

LAVAL, QC, Jan. 31, 2019 /CNW/ - Roche Diagnostics receives Health Canada Authorization to Market the cobas® HPV on the cobas® 6800/8800 Systems for cervical cancer screening in Canada.

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is a known cause of cervical cancer and is used to identify women at risk. This HPV DNA assay adds to the growing Canadian-IVD menu on the cobas® 6800/8800 Systems, and gives laboratories the ability to run HPV DNA testing simultaneously with other previously released cobas assays including: HIV-1, HCV, HBV, CMV, DPX plus two donor screening assays cobas® MPX, and cobas® WNV.

As demonstrated by the prospective clinical study "ATHENA²" comparing screening strategies using cobas® HPV test on the cobas® 4800 System, screening with the HPV test detects more high-grade disease than a Pap test alone. Identifying women at risk, before pre-cancer or cancer develops, is an important prevention strategy as it helps maintain screening efficiency and helps protect women from the potential harms of overtreatment. Countries are increasingly looking to adopt the detection of HPV DNA as primary screening tool instead of the Pap test as part of their national cervical cancer programs³.

"As territorial and provincial screening programs and laboratories look toward introducing HPV for primary screening, they require systems that provide the highest performance standards that Roche delivers as well as new ways to increase efficiency, which ultimately benefit everyone receiving or providing health care across the country" said Whitney Green, President and General Manager, Roche Diagnostics, division of Hoffmann-La Roche Limited, Canada. "In addition to the powerful clinical benefits of the cobas® HPV test, Roche now caters to the needs of both low-to-mid volume labs and high-throughput labs in Canada who want to consolidate a multitude of validated assays onto a single platform."   

The fully automated cobas® 6800/8800 Systems provide the fastest turn-around time, highest throughput and the longest walk-away time compared to other automated molecular platforms, giving laboratories the flexibility to adapt to changing testing demands.

About the Roche Cervical Cancer Portfolio
The Roche Cervical Cancer Portfolio enables healthcare professionals to better screen, manage and diagnose women, based on the confidence and clarity of results across a continuum of patient care. The unique combination of molecular, cellular and tissue-based diagnostic tests provides healthcare professionals powerful information to make patient care decisions and minimize unnecessary treatment.
cobas® HPV testing is clinically validated for HPV primary screening, ASC-US triage, or co-testing (HPV and Pap cytology) using the cobas® 4800 or cobas® 6800/8800 Systems. The cobas® HPV assays provide specific genotyping information for HPV 16 and HPV 18, the highest-risk types, while simultaneously reporting the 12 other high-risk HPV types as a pooled result, all in one test and from one patient sample. More information about cobas® HPV is available at http://www.rochecanada.com/.
Using advanced, dual-biomarker technology to simultaneously detect p16 & Ki-67, CINtec® PLUS Cytology* definitively identifies transforming HPV infections, providing greater certainty to clinicians to stratify patients for follow-up or intervention. CINtec® PLUS Cytology* is an objective triage solution for managing HPV-positive or abnormal Pap cytology primary screening results and helps address some of the limitations of traditional Pap cytology.
CINtec® Histology is used to confirm the presence or absence of high-grade cervical disease in women who have had a tissue biopsy. CINtec® Histology uses the p16 biomarker for a more conclusive diagnosis to provide distinctive visual confirmation of pre-cancerous cervical lesions that may be missed by H&E or morphologic interpretation alone. Both CINtec® assays have been fully automated on the VENTANA BenchMark IHC/ISH instruments.

About the cobas 6800/8800 Systems
The cobas® 6800 and cobas® 8800 systems are fully integrated, automated solutions that introduce a new standard for routine molecular testing in the areas of viral load monitoring, donor screening, women's health and microbiology. Based on Nobel prize-winning PCR technology, the systems are designed to deliver full automation, increased throughput and faster turnaround time, providing users with greater flexibility to increase overall workflow efficiencies. The systems provide up to 96 results in less than 3.5 hours and a total of 384 results for the cobas 6800 System and 960 results for the cobas 8800 System in an eight-hour shift. 
For more information about the Systems, visit http://www.rochecanada.com

References

1. Walboomers JM, Jacobs MV, Manos MM, et al. Human papillomavirus is a necessary cause of invasive cervical cancer worldwide. J Pathol. 1999; 189:12-19. 
2. MH, Wright TC, Sharma A, et al. High-risk human papillomavirus testing in women with ASC-US cytology: results from the ATHENA HPV study. Am J Clin Pathol. 2011;135(3):468-475. 
3. Adapted from "WHO guidelines for screening and treatment of precancerous lesions for cervical cancer prevention" http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/94830/1/9789241548694_eng.pdf

About the Roche Group 
Roche is a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics focused on advancing science to improve people's lives. The combined strengths of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics under one roof have made Roche the leader in personalized healthcare – a strategy that aims to fit the right treatment to each patient in the best way possible.

Roche is the world's largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology and diseases of the central nervous system. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management. 

Founded in 1896, Roche continues to search for better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases and make a sustainable contribution to society. The company also aims to improve patient access to medical innovations by working with all relevant stakeholders. Thirty medicines developed by Roche are included in the World Health Organization Model Lists of Essential Medicines, among them life-saving antibiotics, antimalarials and cancer medicines. Roche has been recognized as the Group Leader in sustainability within the Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences Industry ten years in a row by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI).
The Roche Group, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, is active in over 100 countries and in 2017 employed about 94,000 people worldwide. In 2017, Roche invested CHF 10.4 billion in R&D and posted sales of CHF 53.3 billion. Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information, please visit www.roche.com.

SOURCE Roche Diagnostics