Biomarker Commons

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT), provider of innovative clinical genetics and diagnostic solutions to advance molecular medicine, announced today that it has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Inven2, the technology transfer office at Oslo University Hospital (OUS) and University of Oslo (UiO), for 12 highly promising colorectal cancer tissue biomarkers.

apceth GmbH & Co. KG, located in Munich, Germany, and Indivumed GmbH, based in Hamburg, Germany, have entered into a partnership for the development of a predominantly tissue-based biomarker strategy for the treatment of solid cancers with cellular and/or gene therapeutics. The goal is to predict the response of a targeted cellular/gene therapy in different cancer types and to stratify patients to provide a more individualized cancer treatment with apceth's innovative cell and cell-based gene therapeutics. A reliable biomarker platform will enable oncologists to identify those patients who will most likely benefit from the treatment with apceth's therapeutics, thus establishing a unique and truly personalized therapeutic approach adapted to the needs of each cancer patient.

Dako, a world leading independent cancer diagnostic supplier with 45 years of experience in pathology, announced today that it has entered into a new collaboration agreement with Amgen Inc. on the development of a diagnostic test for an Amgen cancer drug candidate in clinical development.

A new EU-funded biomarker project that aims to get breast cancer therapy more tailored to individual patients has just got under way. By ensuring that breast cancer therapy is specifically designed with an individual patient in mind, medical practitioners can bypass ineffective treatments - saving both valuable time and energy.

HistoRx, the leader in quantitative immunohistochemistry (IHC), advances its proprietary position in measurement of biomarkers in tissue through today's issuance of US Patent 8,121,365 protecting the company's "Methods and systems for determining optimal dilution of a reagent." As the first in what HistoRx expects will be a series of broadening patents pertaining to its quantitative methodology, this patent protects the company's capabilities in optimizing antibody concentration for quantitative immunoassays, methods required to generate high-quality reproducible clinical diagnostic results that precisely relate to biomarker concentrations in tissue sections.