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New cancer drug screening gets Lab21 salute

Written by Sam Fountain

Monday, 17 March 2008

Lab21 operates from extensive, state of the art laboratories at its Cambridge site A Cambridge-based diagnostics provider has received a major affirmation of its state-of-the-art technology after its new genetic therapy test was adopted by US biotech giant, Amgen. Lab21's new diagnostics tool, flagged up earlier this year in Business Weekly's  BIOTECH 2008 supplement, has been taken up by Amgen as a prescreener to determine suitable patients for its new cancer drug, Vectibix. The inclusion of a pre-screening test for patients will not only allow those who are unlikely to benefit from the treatment avoid unpleasant side effects, but also prevent the NHS spending money on expensive therapies unnecessarily, bridging the gap on personalised medicine in the field. “We are proud that for the first time we will be able to treat advanced bowel cancer patients with a targeted agent based on a predictive biomarker," said Amgen UK's medical director, Dr Charles Brigden. "This is a big step forward towards individualized care in bowel cancer." Developed by Lab 21 at its Cambridge laboratories, the new device provides a test for analysis of the KRAS (Kirsten Rat Sarcoma 2 viral oncogene homologue) gene, which plays an important role in cell growth regulation and the proliferation of cancer cells. Amgen scientists had discovered that patients with a mutated K-ras gene did not respond well to the advanced bowel cancer treatment, and the European Commission licenced the product with the stipulation that a predictive test should be carried out, the first such provision of its kind. “As new technologies develop to assist in cost-effective and efficient use of drugs, the need for prospective analysis of patient samples in high quality reference laboratories will become increasingly more important," said chief scientific officer at Lab21, Dr Berwyn Clarke. "We are committed to providing a fully comprehensive service for cancer patients and believe that the KRAS test is an important component. Being able to select which patients are more likely to respond to therapy is an important step forward in the treatment of cancer.” Introduced to the UK earlier this year, Vectibix is currently licensed for patients with metastatic bowel cancer for whom standard chemotherapy has failed in patients with a specific gene mutation. In a biomarker analysis of the pivotal clinical trial, the drug doubled survival rates in patients with a non-mutated  KRAS gene compared with patients receiving best supportive care alone, Lab21 said. Approximately 60 per cent of patients with advanced bowel cancer have wild type KRAS, and of these, up to 60 per cent would be expected to respond to Vectibix. As part of the deal, financial details of which were not disclosed, Lab21 will provide the screening test to indicate which patients are likely to benefit from Amgen’s new drug. "The successful conclusion of this agreement further demonstrates Lab21 as a recognised provider of top quality clinical diagnostic services to facilitate improved healthcare in Europe,” Clarke said. "We are especially pleased to secure this partnership and we hope to support Amgen with other clinical services in the future." With regard to further deals on the horizon as a result of future stipulations by the EC that licences carry accompanying pre-screens, a spokesperson for Lab21 said that it was in discussions with a number of companies, although not for anything of the same magnitude as the Amgen agreement. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 559 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

 

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