Targos Molecular Pathology offers highly standardised clinical biomarker services for the development of the international pharmaceutical and diagnostic industry and has established itself in the last seven years as a leader in the field for all oncology indications.
The company uses the knowledge and experience of its large team of pathologists and scientists in combination with latest technology to apply, discover and validate predictive biomarkers in international clinical trials at the highest quality level.
Targos has been inspected by the FDA and participates in US-CAP proficiency testing and lab improvement programmes.
The Targos founders represent the company’s unique combination of key expertises. Prof. Josef Rüschoff, Pathologie Nordhessen and Institute of Pathology, University Göttingen, one of Germany’s most dynamic molecular and surgical pathologists and a key opinion leader for Her2 testing, brings ten years’ experience with biomarker projects into the company; Prof. Reinhard Büttner, chief pathologist, Institute of Pathology, University Köln, a leading German molecular pathologist, broadens the scientific background of Targos; and Dr. Thomas Henkel, biomedical researcher and biotech entrepreneur, with more than 15 years’ experience in biopharmaceutical companies (MediGene, Tularik), adds leadership and biopharma business experience.
Highly standardised biomarker analysis
Targos is uniquely positioned to combine expertise in clinical and molecular pathology and highly standardised biomarker analysis with strict quality assurance and customer oriented project management.
Targos, in collaboration with its pathology partners, has acted as GCP-compliant patho-diagnostic reference centre for >60 pharmaco-diagnostic trials for international top tier pharma and diagnostic companies (such as Roche/Genentech, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck KgaA, DAKO, Ventana, ThermoFisherScientific and Abbott).
The Targos team of 65 employees has proven its carefulness, reliability and flexibility in handling small and very large projects to customers’ satisfaction.
More than 35,000 patients have been screened in the last seven years with more than 50 biomarker assays including HER2, EGFR, B-Raf and K-Ras.
Based on our experience with standardised biomarker testing, our daughter company Targos Advance is focused on advancing biomarker utility and utilisation by various educational efforts.
Clinical biomarker service portfolio
- Project and data management of biomarker studies
- Histopathology
- Histological quality assessment of tissues
- Tissue dissection (macrodissection, laser capture microdissection)
- Immunohistochemistry
- FISH, CISH, SISH, ddISH
- RNA, DNA preparation and QC
- Lightcycler qRT-PCR
- Expression profiling
- Mutation analysis
- ELISA
- Tissue microarray generation
- Logistic services (sample storage, shipment, site pick-up)
- Biomarker documentation services (instruction for sites, lab manuals, report and result forms, database generation, data transmission)
Biomarker research and development services
Targos performs discovery and clinical validation of biomarkers and drug targets for customers through collaborations with the University of Göttingen and the Comprehensive Cancer Care Center Cologne/Bonn.
Biomarker education in clinical practice
The need of pharma and diagnostic companies for spreading knowledge and application of predictive biomarkers triggered the foundation of our daughter company Targos Advance, which focuses on advancing the utilisation and the utility of biomarkers in clinical practice.
Educational training courses – standardisation of biomarker testing
Targos Advance offers on a regular basis courses to spread the latest knowledge about standardised biomarker application among international pathologists and oncologists. The focus is always on the standardisation of biomarker testing.
Ring studies and beta-site testing
On behalf of our customers we organise international ring studies to prove robustness and to evaluate interlab variations of novel biomarker assays.
Our laboratory staff, experienced in analysing tissue samples from all around the world, performs beta-site testing for novel reagents and assays under GCP conditions.
Molecular pathology services
Targos Advance also offers molecular pathology services to benchmark regional reference labs throughout the world and to provide the latest molecular pathology assays to regions in the world, which have difficult access to these technologies.
