German biotech company Mainz Biome has announced a research collaboration with Australian startup Microba Life Sciences. As part of the agreement, Microba and Mainz Biomed will conduct a pilot research project utilising Microba’s proprietary metagenomic sequencing technology and bioinformatic tools to potentially discover novel microbiome biomarkers for pancreatic cancer detection.

Pancreatic cancer is a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas with one of the highest mortality rates of all major cancers. Each year, about 466,000 lives are taken globally, and it’s the seventh leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide.

The project is expected to run through late 2023 and will deploy Microba’s Community Profiler (MCP), Microba’s unique metagenomic platform technology. MCP has been established as a best-in-class research tool with the ability to produce comprehensive and accurate species profiles of human gastrointestinal samples.

Mainz Biomed is currently commercialising its flagship product ColoAlert, a highly efficacious and easy-to-use detection test for colorectal cancer (CRC) in select international territories.