Reflecting on 2021 and looking forward to next year
2021 was an exciting although challenging year, marked by the ongoing global pandemic. With the end of the year in sight, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on our efforts and achievements.
Firstly, I am extremely proud of our team’s unwavering commitment to support our customers’ important work. Our accomplishments this year are truly a reflection of their dedication toward customer service, which has been a key driver of Cergentis’ continued growth and success.
Since our inception, we have committed ourselves to improving the quality of genetic research worldwide. Fueled by this mission and driven by the current global health response, we deliver innovative solutions to guarantee the genetic quality of future therapies. In line with this, we have joined the NIST Genome Editing consortium to support future scientific and clinical development.
Furthermore, our fruitful collaborations with lymphoma experts from 5 Dutch hospitals culminated in a Nature Communications publication. This study underscored the robustness of our FFPE-TLC approach, as revolutionary tool for cancer diagnostics. To get this to the market as quickly as we can, so that cancer patients worldwide can benefit from it, we are engaging with a commercialization partner.
We have released our first fully integrated in-house solution: CHOice®. With this new option, our customers can perform high quality CHO clone selection in their own laboratory, enabling them to accelerate time to clinic by de-risking clone selection early in the cell line development process.
Finally, the rapid growth of the cell and gene therapy field has driven strong growth in demand for advanced analytical tools to satisfy the stringent regulatory requirements. As recent events led several companies to see their clinical trials halted, this reinforced the need for thorough genetic characterization of ATMPs. Consequently, we are witnessing a growing adoption of our TLA-based solutions. Of note, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News listed our proprietary assays as reliable tools to guarantee gene therapy quality.
All in all, our efforts and strategies have yielded transformational results for our company and for our customers, and down the line, also for patients. Cergentis has been able to position itself as a globally recognized and leading genetic testing service provider, active in over 40 countries. Moreover, our assays continue to be extensively endorsed in public literature, 12 new peer-reviewed papers have been published this year.
Looking forward, an exciting year is ahead of us as it will mark our 10-year anniversary! During 2022, we aim to develop new QC solutions, improve and broaden our service portfolio, and further expand our partnerships with leaders in the field.
With festivities around the corner, I wish our customers, employees and partners a safe, healthy and joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year. Thank you all for your trust and support. We look forward to continuing empowering you to do your best work: supporting development of innovative therapies for patients all around the planet.
Joris Schuurmans
