CLN - Industry Playbook
Metabolon and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) have established a collaboration for discovery of biomarkers and biological pathways associated with Parkinson’s disease through the LRRK2 Investigative Therapeutics Exchange, Metabolon recently announced.
The collaboration aims to unlock new biological insights to improve early diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson’s disease. It leverages Metabolon’s Global Discovery Platform to power comprehensive multiomic analysis across MJFF’s extensive Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), which is the world’s most deeply characterized Parkinson’s disease cohort, according to Metabolon.
Through Metabolon’s global metabolomics expertise and integration of multiomics data within MJFF’s research environment, researchers will have access to unprecedented analytical depth across plasma, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid samples, the company said.
Together, MJFF and Metabolon will study proteomic, lipidomic, and metabolomic data from PPMI participants. Researchers will look for patterns, including those that may reflect LRRK2 activity. Such insights could help identify biomarkers that support patient stratification and target engagement in future clinical studies, Metabolon said.
Illumina and Labcorp recently announced an expanded collaboration to advance precision oncology through innovative application of next-generation sequencing solutions across the healthcare ecosystem.
The expanded collaboration’s projects are expected to promote equitable access to cancer biomarker testing by bringing it closer to patients through new distributed test offerings, evidence to facilitate payer coverage, and tests to address areas of unmet need.
The collaboration will involve the companies commercializing Labcorp’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized liquid biopsy assay, PGDx elio plasma focus Dx, alongside Illumina’s FDA-approved TruSight Oncology Comprehensive for solid tumor profiling.
Together, these distributed test kits are intended to expand access to tissue and liquid biopsy testing for hospitals and community health systems, bring advanced biomarker testing closer to patients, help provide more specific diagnoses, and identify eligibility for targeted treatments and clinical trials, the companies said.
This distributed offering also aims to provide pharmaceutical companies with differentiated opportunities for companion diagnostic development and to support tissue and liquid biopsy needs for targeted therapy approvals.
Pixelgen Technologies recently announced a research collaboration with a group at the department of oncology-pathology at Karolinska Instituet in Sweden to discover novel biomarkers for cancer immunotherapy response.
The collaboration will focus on the spatial distribution and abundance of more than 150 cell surface proteins in patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer who undergo immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
The project will use Pixelgen’s Proximity Network Assay. The assay may give new insights into the organization and interactions of cell surface proteins, project leaders said. That knowledge could aid in the discovery of new biomarkers for immune checkpoint inhibition response and consequently inform treatment regimens for patients.
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has partnered with the precision medicine company Allelica on a clinical genomics study aimed at reducing cardiovascular risk in veterans, Allelica recently announced.
The trial aims to improve therapeutic interventions for heart disease prevention using clinical genomic testing provided by Allelica. The trial will enroll veterans at risk for cardiovascular events who do not currently take cholesterol-lowering medications. Participants will receive either standard care or a genomic risk assessment. Researchers will use polygenic risk scores (PRS) for coronary artery disease and SLCO1B1 pharmacogenetics testing to assess statin tolerance.
Allelica will provide eligible veterans with clinical, multiancestry PRS and SLCO1B1 pharmacogenetic testing, as well as genomic risk assessment. Using the test results, investigators will determine whether personalized lipid-lowering therapy can improve adherence and statin effectiveness and reduce adverse effects.
The study’s results have the potential to inform how healthcare professionals prescribe lipid-lowering drugs, reduce unnecessary side effects, and improve long-term health outcomes. This approach could be scaled across the VA healthcare system and beyond, benefiting millions of individuals at risk for cardiovascular disease, Allelica said.
A recently announced collaboration between GenDx, based in the Netherlands, and Treos Bio, based in the United Kingdom, aims to develop the next generation of effective off-the-shelf peptide cancer immunotherapies.
The collaboration’s goal is to accelerate the clinical development of Treos Bio’s active immunotherapies while enabling precise patient selection through an integrated companion diagnostic approach, the companies said. The collaboration involves the development and validation of an integrated companion diagnostic (CDx) human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing test for Treos Bio’s off-the-shelf peptide cancer immunotherapy candidate, PolyPEPI1018, for the treatment of microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.
The CDx will combine GenDx’s NGSgo HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C typing kits and NGSengine analysis software with Treos Bio’s proprietary PEPI Test predictive software platform in compliance with ISO13485, European Union In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation, and relevant Food and Drug Administration requirements.
The companies plan to integrate HLA typing workflow and PEPI Test predictive software and clinically validate them during Treos Bio’s anticipated phase 3 clinical trial of PolyPEPI1018.
Read the full May-June issue of CLN.