Exact Sciences, a Madison, Wis.-based molecular diagnostics company, and Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic have announced a five-year extension and expansion of their collaboration, broadening their efforts to develop screening, surveillance and diagnostic tests beyond colorectal cancer to address other diseases within the gastrointestinal tract.

The amended agreement extends the collaboration for five more years with David Ahlquist, M.D., a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist, and his lab at Mayo Clinic. Exact Sciences will continue to have rights to certain intellectual property, including patents, know-how and new markers.

The original June 11, 2009 agreement between Exact Sciences and Mayo Clinic led to the development of Cologuard, which the FDA approved in 2014. Cologuard is the first and only FDA-approved stool DNA-based colorectal cancer screening test.