Guardant Health concludes purchasing Guardant Health AMEA joint venture

KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 (Bernama) -- Guardant Health Inc, a leading precision oncology company has announced purchasing the remaining shares of Guardant Health AMEA Inc held by SoftBank and its affiliates, giving the company full control over operations throughout the Asia, Middle East and Africa region.

More than half of the world’s estimated new cancer cases come from Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA), according to a statement.

This acquisition will allow Guardant Health to directly address the growing cancer burden in the region by accelerating the adoption of the company’s blood tests and services used by healthcare providers to detect and manage cancer across all stages of the disease.

Guardant Health AMEA operations support 41 countries across the region. Near term, the company will prioritise bringing blood-based testing to healthcare providers and to patients with advanced cancer in Japan, where, in March 2022, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) granted regulatory approval of Guardant360® CDx, a liquid biopsy test for tumour mutation profiling in patients with advanced solid tumours.

“By acquiring the remaining shares of Guardant Health AMEA, we can focus on creating a unified and centralised global organisation that delivers on our promise to help conquer cancer and improve patient outcomes,” said Helmy Eltoukhy, Guardant Health chairman and co-CEO.

“We believe our blood-based tests can play a significant role in helping address the growing incidence of cancer in the region, and we look forward to continuing to support patients facing cancer diagnoses as we expand our operations in these markets.”

In May 2018, Guardant Health and SoftBank Vision Fund established the Guardant Health AMEA joint venture to expand commercialisation of Guardant Health's industry-leading liquid biopsy technology across the region.

Under the terms of the parties’ joint venture agreement, Guardant Health paid approximately US$177.8 million to acquire the Guardant Health AMEA equity interest held by SoftBank and its affiliates. (US$1 = RM4.422)

-- BERNAMA