SOPHiA GENETICS and Jessa Ziekenhuis announce precision oncology partnership

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.

“At Jessa Ziekenhuis, we are strongly committed to innovation in order to provide our patients with access to the most advanced oncological care. Through our collaboration with SOPHiA GENETICS, we can fully harmonize and accelerate our NGS workflows. This step enables us to generate molecular insights faster and more accurately, which benefits both clinical decision-making and our research projects. Ultimately, this is an important investment in personalized medicine and in the quality of care for Belgian patients with cancer,” said Dr. Brigitte Maes, Clinical Pathologist at Laboratory for Molecular Diagnostics at Jessa Ziekenhuis.

“Our collaboration with Jessa Ziekenhuis exemplifies how SOPHiA GENETICS can support leading institutions in scaling their genomics capabilities while ensuring the highest possible quality and efficiency,” said Kevin Puylaert, Managing Director of EMEA, SOPHiA GENETICS. “By delivering a fully automated, cloud-native solution tailored to their oncology needs, we’re empowering Jessa Ziekenhuis to unify workflows, accelerate insights, and elevate patient care across Belgium.”

With this agreement, SOPHiA GENETICS further strengthens its footprint across European hospital networks, bringing scalable, decentralized, data-driven precision medicine to institutions advancing patient care through cutting-edge genomics.