Hilden, Germany, and Germantown, Maryland, February 20, 2020 – QIAGEN (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced that Nigeria, the country with the largest population in Africa and one of the world’s 30 high-disease burden countries for tuberculosis (TB), has published guidelines recommending QuantiFERON®-TB Gold Plus (QFT®-Plus) in screening for latent TB infection (LTBI) as part of Nigeria’s strategy to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. QIAGEN has partnered with Nigeria’s National Tuberculosis &
Leprosy Control Program (NTBLCP) to adapt World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and provide guidance to healthcare professionals on dealing with latent TB. Nigeria is the first high-burden country to exclusively embrace modern blood tests, called interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs), for latent TB screening of at-risk individuals in tuberculosis control programs.
“Nigeria is first in Africa to adopt the Global End TB strategy by incorporating TB prevention in their national TB guidelines. As a more comprehensive disease control approach, their new guidelines will take aim at the large silent reservoir of latent TB infection by testing and targeting those who are more likely to become tomorrow’s cases.” said Dr. Masae Kawamura, Senior Director, TB Medical and Scientific Affairs, at QIAGEN. “To finally provide both TB treatment and prevention for Nigerians is a major step forward towards global health equity and accelerating TB decline in Nigeria. We wholeheartedly congratulate Dr. Lawanson and Nigeria’s Ministry of Health.”
“We are proud to publish these new guidelines for LTBI screening for Nigeria, based on the WHO recommendation of 2018, as this is a crucial step to accelerate our efforts to fight latent and active tuberculosis in our country,” comments Dr. Adebola Lawanson, National Coordinator of the TB Programme, Federal Ministry Of Health of Nigeria. “The creation of these guidelines, and the input from QIAGEN, was a great opportunity to innovate our approach to testing and treatment of TB with the inclusion of IGRA testing. With these guidelines our healthcare professionals now have a holistic protocol on managing at risk individuals with latent TB to avoid progression to active TB, followed by antibiotic treatment of infected individuals.”
Nigeria, one of 30 countries ranked as “high-burden” in the 2018 Global Tuberculosis Report by the World Health Organization (WHO), is increasing national efforts to end TB by 2030 and adopting innovative ways to combat the disease. The country notified only 24% of the estimated TB cases in 2017, with about 155,000 estimated TB deaths occurring annually (WHO Global TB Report 2018). In 2018 Nigeria reported a total of 106,533 TB cases out of the expected 415,000 leaving over 300,000 TB cases undiagnosed. Worldwide, there were 10 million new cases of active TB and 1.6 million deaths in 2017, including 300,000 from HIV-associated tuberculosis and 1.3 million in HIV-negative patients, according to WHO estimates.
Tuberculosis is a contagious bacterial infection spread primarily through coughing by patients with the active pulmonary form of the disease. In latent TB infection, the bacterium infects a person but produces no symptoms unless it progresses to active disease, when the patient becomes highly contagious. WHO and other global organizations have recognized the need for screening and treatment for latent TB infections to help prevent contagion and reduce the disease burden. QIAGEN’s QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus test for latent tuberculosis combines a flexible new blood collection workflow with innovative CD4/CD8 T cell technology to enable the most comprehensive TB immune response detection available. To learn more about QuantiFERON-TB tests and tuberculosis control, please visit
http://www.quantiferon.com/
About QIAGEN
QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. Our sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA and proteins from blood, tissue and other materials. Assay technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. Bioinformatics software and knowledge bases interpret data to report relevant, actionable insights. Automation solutions tie these together in seamless and cost-effective workflows. QIAGEN provides solutions to more than 500,000 customers around the world in Molecular Diagnostics (human healthcare) and Life Sciences (academia, pharma R&D and industrial applications, primarily forensics). As of December 31, 2019, QIAGEN employed approximately 5,100 people in over 35 locations worldwide. Further information can be found at http://www.qiagen.com.
Certain statements contained in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to QIAGEN’s products, launches, regulatory submissions, collaborations, markets, strategy, taxes or operating results, including without limitation its expected net sales, net sales of particular products (including anticipated sales of its QFT-Plus test for latent TB, its portfolio of next generation sequencing solutions and QIAstat-Dx), net sales in particular geographies, adjusted net sales, adjusted diluted earnings per share results, product launches (including anticipated launches of next generation sequencing solutions, the QIAstat-Dx syndromic testing platform, a gastrointestinal panel in the U.S., and a CE-IVD marked panel for meningitis), development of tissue-based companion diagnostics for Amgen’s investigational new oncology therapy, placements of QIAsymphony modular PCR instruments, improvements in operating and financial leverage, currency movements against the U.S. dollar, plans for investment in its portfolio and share repurchase commitments, plans to shift our Global Operations organization to a regional manufacturing structure, our ability to grow adjusted earnings per share at a greater rate than sales, our ability to improve operating efficiencies and maintain disciplined capital allocation, and plans to take further pre-tax charges in 2020 related to the project announced in Q3 2019, are forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with management of growth and international operations (including the effects of currency fluctuations, regulatory processes and dependence on logistics); variability of operating results and allocations between customer classes; the commercial development of markets for our products to customers in academia, pharma, applied testing and molecular diagnostics; changing relationships with customers, suppliers and strategic partners; competition; rapid or unexpected changes in technologies; fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN’s products (including fluctuations due to general economic conditions, the level and timing of customers’ funding, budgets and other factors); our ability to obtain regulatory approval of our products; difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN’s products to integrated solutions and producing such products; the ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to differentiate and protect our products from competitors’ products; market acceptance of QIAGEN’s new products and the integration of acquired technologies and businesses; actions of governments, global or regional economic developments, weather or transportation delays, natural disasters, political or public health crises, or other force majeure events; and the other factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” contained in Item 3 of our most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F. For further information, please refer to the discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).