Strand, a global life sciences & clinical genomics company headquartered in Bangalore, entered into a partnership with the Mazumdar-Shaw Medical Foundation (MSMF) to set up the Strand at Mazumdar-Shaw (SAMS) translational lab in the Mazumdar-Shaw Centre for Translational Research (MSCTR) in Bangalore.

This is a major milestone towards enabling an ecosystem of personalized medical treatment for patients with cancer and other genetic diseases.

"It gives us great pleasure to partner with Strand Life Sciences, a pioneer in genomics and personalized medicine. With evolving healthcare systems, it is imperative that we are constantly innovating and developing capabilities that will provide personalized treatment and quality care to the people of India. We believe this collaboration will help us foster innovation and encourage in-depth research in the genomics space and thereby provide better care for patients with cancer and other genetic diseases," said Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon.

Based on statistics, nearly seven lakh Indians die of cancer every year, while over 10 lakh are newly diagnosed with some form of the disease.

According to the latest World Cancer Report from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are over 4.77 lakh men and 5.37 lakh women diagnosed with cancer in India in 2012 alone. The scale of these challenges requires the Indian healthcare industry to use affordability as a driver of innovation.

Strand through its expertise will offer comprehensive genomic testing for cancer and other germline or hereditary conditions at highly affordable costs.

In addition, the collaboration will also entail promoting research in the field of genomics, conducting medical and non-medical programs, seminars and talks shows, assisting clinicians and scientists in performing quality research, and towards making genomics research resources and data available to scientists.

Talking about this partnership, Dr Vijay Chandru, Chairman & CEO, Strand Life Sciences said, "The Mazumdar-Shaw Medical Foundation has shown great foresight and magnanimity in helping us work towards the goal of providing the leading edge of genomic medicine at affordable prices in India and elsewhere. This collaboration provides Strand with an exciting opportunity to conduct and promote in-depth research in the field of genomic sequencing based diagnostics."

He further added, "This partnership is recognition of our joint commitment to bringing best-in-class healthcare technologies closer to people in India at affordable costs. As part of the vision laid out in the partnership, Strand has developed an affordable Hereditary Breast Cancer Diagnostic Test that will cost significantly less than comparable tests available in the West and India. This is the first of many innovations that we will develop at the SAMS translational lab"