Yokogawa, HIROTSU BIO SCIENCE sign investment and partnership agreement

Collaboration to widen use of N-NOSE cancer screening test

Yokogawa Electric Cor-poration and HI-ROTSU BIO SCIENCE (HBS) announce that they have signed an investment and partnership agreement with the goal of expanding the use of HBS’s N-NOSE cancer screening test service, which utilises the highly sensitive olfactory sensory functions of nematodes to detect cancer. Under this agreement, Yokogawa will invest in HBS, and be responsible for the manufacturing and maintenance of N-NOSE’s automatic analysis equipment. The two companies are also aiming to develop new automatic analysis equipment and promote the global growth of the N-NOSE business.

Issues with cancer screening include the difficulty of detecting cancer at an early stage and the fact that not enough people are having these tests, and this can be attributed to the lack of a primary screening test method that can easily detect many kinds of cancer with high accuracy and at low cost. These issues have become particularly acute during the COVID-19 pandemic as many people with underlying diseases are reluctant to risk exposure to the virus by visiting medical institutions to undergo testing.