Tecan : Geschäftsbericht (available only in EN) 2022

Tecan Annual Report 2022

The fight

against cancer

Tecan's role in fighting cancer: from research to clinic

By the time you turn 40, chances are that someone close to you has had cancer. Too many of us are familiar with the consequences of a diagnosis coming at a late stage of the disease, or the right treatment not being received in time.

Even though cancer survival rates are improving, we still have a long way to go. In recent years, the medical community has gained many important insights that could greatly improve cancer treatment. Leading thinkers agree that it is all about getting the right diagnosis, and consequently the right treatment, to the right patient at the right time. That may sound like a truism, but the consequence of this thought has been a massive change in the way that cancer healthcare is now being designed and performed. We are moving on from the one-size-fits-all approach in favor of a precise focus on each individual patient's case. We are moving away from a curative, sick-care strategy towards more predictive, pre-emptive, and preventative strategies. This is a vast undertaking, implying that every individual in our growing, aging population needs to be assessed, diagnosed, and treated as an individual - and preferably well ahead of becoming ill.

This strategy still requires a massive rethink of our healthcare operation. It's not a question of more beds; when we get this right, there will be fewer patients with late-stage cancer to care for because the disease will be stopped before it starts or progresses to that stage. The massive healthcare costs associated with cancer treatment could be more easily managed - cancer would be treated much earlier, and cured, or cancer might not appear at all, due to effective prevention programs.

Our understanding of the causes of cancer is progressing every year. The missing link is the empowerment of healthcare systems so that we can scale our approaches to screening, early diagnosis, early treatment, surgical intervention, and eventually, prevention. This is the role that Tecan can play: enabling our customers to scale the research, diagnosis, and treatment in the global fight against cancer.

This year's annual report from Tecan focuses on our role in fighting cancer, from the very earliest research phase in the lab, to advanced robotic surgery, to the prevention of the disease altogether. As a stakeholder, you will know that Tecan plays in many adjacent fields, that we were a driving force in COVID-19 testing, pandemic surveillance and the development of mRNA vaccines, and we have equally important roles in addressing genetic, metabolic, neurological, and cardiovascular disease.

This year, the spotlight is on cancer. Read about how Tecan is involved in scaling healthcare innovation globally, playing a decisive role from basic research to late-stage treatment and early prevention. Tecan's contribution is key in the fight to rid the world of the devastation of this disease.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Dr. Achim von Leoprechting

Chief Executive Officer

Molecules, markers, mutations

UNCOVERING THE DNA OF CANCER

An urgent need

The grim reality of cancer, with 10 million deaths in 2020 alone, accounting for 1 in 6 deaths worldwide, highlights the pressing need for a continued focus on research. In the US, 1.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer each year, costing USD 174 billion. As the population ages, the incidence of various cancers is increasing. Early diagnosis and effective treatment can improve outcomes, and up to 50% of cancers could be prevented by addressing risk factors and implementing preventative strategies. This has led to several "moonshot" initiatives being launched in the US to accelerate oncology research, for example, since 2016 with funding of USD 1.8 billion.

Driving innovations in oncology research

Innovations such as cell and gene therapies, stem cells, and antibodies are driving rapid developments. At the same time, the increasing complexity of novel drugs requires scalable, robust, and reproducible solutions. Integrating biomarker knowledge into research, clinical trials, and diagnostics will enhance success rates, but further advances in precision medicine are needed. By scaling healthcare innovation globally, Tecan plays an important role in enabling its customers' and partners' research, which eventually will improve outcomes for cancer patients.

Molecular testing plays a crucial role in every stage of a cancer patient's journey. To this end, Tecan is actively involved in all aspects of molecular oncology, from drug discovery and development to diagnostics, treatment, and prevention. One promising field is immuno-oncology, where whole genome sequencing, and "omics" studies are used to detect new cancer biomarkers, particularly in the cancer microenvironment. Key challenges in focus of today's research include the delivery of drugs to individual cells, the understanding of cancer recurrence many years after successful treatment, and the link between DNA mutations and cancer development.

Tecan's contributions to oncology research

In oncology research, Tecan is enabling genomic and proteomic workflows as well as the analysis of cells and tissue. The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an especially promising area that has revolutionized cancer research. The process of generating raw sequencing data can often be laborious and error-prone, plagued by issues of reproducibility and burnout among lab staff. Tecan has addressed these challenges by offering a comprehensive range of products and solutions for NGS automation. These include products for mRNA sequencing library preparation and multimode plate readers with live cell imaging and real-time cytometry. Together, these products bring unparalleled efficiency and reproducibility to oncology research as they are easily integrated into fully automated, user-friendly workflows that minimize the need for manual intervention. Besides helping our end-users with Tecan-branded products directly, we are also helping our partners to scale healthcare innovation. For NGS, for example, we develop and supply

the fluidic modules for many sequencers in the market. In addition, we accelerate oncology research through novel tools - for example, in spatial biology.

Tecan's NGS automation solutions democratize sequencing in oncology research by providing a scalable, fully automated, and reproducible workflow with hands-on time of just a few minutes. This makes them suitable even for lower throughput applications. Additionally, Tecan's multimode plate readers open new doors for cell-based research by allowing real-time analysis of cancer cell growth dynamics, drug response screening, and cell death studies. Rather than being stuck with tedious, manual tasks, researchers can focus on making breakthrough discoveries. More time for thinking means more progress for research, empowered by Tecan.

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The truth about NGS and library prep: Find out what is inflating your costs tecan.com/blog/the-truth-about-ngs-and-library-prep-find-out-what-is-inflating-your-costs

Making NGS library prep practical for low-throughput labs tecan.com/blog/making-ngs-library-prep-practical-for-low-throughput-labs