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NCI awards BioMarker Strategies $1.5M for phase 2 melanoma diagnostic testing
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The National Cancer Institute awarded BioMarker Strategies a $1.5 million phase 2 contract to develop a pathway-based companion diagnostic test that would help select optimal therapy for individuals with melanoma, the company announced.
The contract will support the refinement of the Baltimore-based company’s PathMAP assay and ex vivo protocols developed under a National Cancer Institute Small Business Innovative Research phase 1 contract, according to a press release. It also will aid PathMAP test validation in human clinical studies.
“Targeted therapies now exist, including the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib, that can help melanoma patients keep their cancer in check,” Douglas Clark, MD, founder and CEO of BioMarker Strategies, said in the release. “The challenge is to determine which individuals are most likely to benefit from which therapy or combination of therapies. PathMAP … uses a patient’s live tumor cells to provide better information, including patient resistance to therapy, to support targeted therapy selection for individual melanoma patients.”
PathMAP profiles provide information that would not be possible using traditional biomarkers from dead, fixed tumor tissue, the release stated. The phosphoprotein-based, phenotypic profiles are derived from ex vivo exposure of fresh solid tumor samples to targeted therapies in BioMarker Strategies’ SnapPath live tumor cell processing system.
Data from preclinical and clinical collaboration in advanced melanoma recently was published by BioMarker Strategies in PLoS One.