Bayer-helmed oncology biomarker project launched
pharmafile | March 14, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | AstraZeneca, Bayer, Janssen, Max Planck Institute, Merck, OncoTrack, Pfizer, Roche, biomarkers, oncology
A project to develop the next generation of oncology biomarkers has been launched in Berlin.
The pharma industry and European academics are partnering in OncoTrack, a consortium comprising 60 scientists including clinicians, molecular experts and bioinformaticians.
Managed by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, OncoTrack’s aim is to develop novel approaches for identifying new markers for colon cancer.
Lining up with Bayer are AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Merck, Pfizer and Roche Diagnostics, who all make “in-kind” contributions to the five year project.
This is matched by money from the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a public-private fund set up by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations and the European Commission, giving OncoTrack a total budget of 25.8 million euros.
“The joint efforts of this consortium will generate the critical mass required to tackle the complex task of using large-scale genomic analysis as a basis for rational selection of novel cancer biomarkers,” says David Henderson, Bayer’s principal scientist in translational sciences.
The importance of genomic cancer diagnostics has come to the fore as scientists become increasingly aware that tumours – even in the same cancer – have unique characteristics.
“Even innovative targeted therapies still typically only help a sub-population of patients,” says Bayer in a statement.
Clinicians have to accurately diagnose both tumour type and its stage of development, while predicting how a patient will respond to various therapies.
The advent of next generation sequencing means the human genome can be sequenced in weeks rather than years, speeding up drug development studies and the early identification of targets.
Tumour-specific biomarkers should help improve diagnosis, narrow down the selection of therapies and make it easier to track the response of patients during treatment.
“The access to the scientists and commercial research facilities afforded by members of the OncoTrack consortium will allow us to adopt avenues of discovery previously out of reach for academic research institutes,” says Max Planck’s Professor Hans Lehrach.
“Most importantly, our research will yield tangible benefits to patients in the therapy and management of their disease,” Lehrach adds.
OncoTrack will generate genomic and epigenetic sequence data from clinically well-defined tumors and their metastases, and will compare these to the germline genome of the patients while making a detailed molecular characterisation of the tumours.
It will also establish and characterise a novel series of xenograft tumour models and cell lines derived from the same set of tumours, which will support research on tumour biology and the early stages of biomarker qualification.
Academic institutions involved include: University College London, Sweden’s Uppsala Universitet, Université Paris-Sud, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Austria’s Medizinische Universität Graz and Technische Universität Dresden.
Adam Hill
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