Devices & Diagnostics

GSK and ABT expand personalized medicine pact for new cancer diagnostic

  A GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) cancer drug program will be developed with a new companion diagnostic […]

 

A GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) cancer drug program will be developed with a new companion diagnostic from Abbott (NYSE:ABT) as GSK moves to broaden its reach in personalized medicine.

Abbott recently announced it would split into two companies, one focused on drugs and another focused on medical devices and diagnostics. Under the pact with GSK, Abbott’s medical device and diagnostics arm will develop polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to screen for nonsmall cell lung cancer and melanoma tumors that express the PRAME antigen. This antigen is expressed in 69 percent of nonsmall cell lung cancer cases as well as in other cancers such as melanoma, breast, ovarian and bladder cancer.

The effort expands a collaboration started in 2009 between the two companies. No financial terms of original or expanded collaboration were disclosed.

British pharmaceutical giant GSK, which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is developing a novel class of cancer drugs as part of its Antigen Specific Cancer Immunotherapy Program or ASCI. ASCI medicines are designed to train the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells. Because ASCIs’ mode of action is so specific, the compounds call for diagnostic tools to help clinicians determine which patients will best respond to treatment depending on the antigens expressed by their tumors. ASCI compounds are still investigational and do not yet have regulatory approval anywhere in the world.

“This agreement is a testament to the scientific advances Abbott and the industry is making in personalized medicine and companion diagnostics, which are helping ensure the right medicines get to the right cancer patients,” Stafford O’Kelly, head of Abbott’s molecular diagnostics business, said in a statement.

Photo from  Annie Cavanagh, Wellcome Images

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