SOPHiA GENETICS (Nasdaq: SOPH), a cloud-native healthcare technology company and a global leader in data-driven medicine, has announced a significant new collaboration with Jessa Ziekenhuis in Hasselt, Belgium. The institutions will partner to bring cutting edge genomic testing and oncology research to cancer patients across Belgium.
Jessa Ziekenhuis, one of Belgium’s largest healthcare institutions, serves a population of over 530,000 and processes more than 3,000 oncology DNA and RNA samples annually. Through this collaboration, the hospital will adopt SOPHiA DDM™ across its pathology operations to unify its next-generation sequencing (NGS) workflows under a single platform. This full standardization, covering universal library preparation, unified automated protocols, and a fully integrated workflow, will ensure efficiency, harmonization, and compliance with national ComPerMed guidelines, while enabling more effective use of sequencing resources.
The hospital will implement six SOPHiA GENETICS applications tailored to its testing needs in solid tumors, hematologic malignancies, and liquid biopsy analysis, enhancing both clinical decision-making and research capabilities.
The SOPHiA GENETICS solution combines a cloud-based platform with embedded automation and advanced analysis tools, fully integrated with Jessa Ziekenhuis’s Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). This ensures seamless data flow, consistency across the workflow, and significantly streamlined operations.
By unifying its entire pathology NGS operation under this single workflow, Jessa Ziekenhuis expects to cut hands-on time by 30–50%, reduce overall costs by up to 25%, and accelerate testing turnaround times. This harmonized approach also enables more efficient use of sequencers, record implementation-to-accreditation timelines, and better scalability.
Furthermore, the SOPHiA DDM™ Dispatch feature will enable Jessa Ziekenhuis to seamlessly share a NovaSeq sequencer with AZ Delta in Roeselare, Belgium. Jessa and AZ Delta jointly and equally invested in the NovaSeq, and on this foundation the two hospitals established the Bridge Consortium to provide sequencing services together. This collaborative network improves turnaround times, optimizes use of sequencing capacity, and strengthens knowledge sharing.
