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GE and Lilly Collaborates to Co-Develop Molecular In-Vitro Diagnostics for Cancer Treatments
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GE Global Research and GE Healthcare have announced a three-year collaborative research agreement with Eli Lilly and Company to discover and develop advanced in vitro diagnostic assays that may predict cancer treatment response to targeted therapies.
In addition to Lilly’s existing chemotherapy agents, Lilly is developing targeted cancer therapeutics, which are now in both early and late stage clinical development. GE is developing advanced multiplexed tissue-based assays and image analysis tools that can measure multiple biological pathways.
The goal of this collaboration is to discover key protein and gene signatures that will predict the likelihood that a medication will be effective in treating certain cancers. Once identified the signatures can then be used to pre-select patients who are good candidates for the targeted therapy.
“The co-development of diagnostics and therapeutics is a major strategy of GE Healthcare’s “Early Health” vision, and our collaboration with Lilly and our expansion into in vitro diagnostics is right in line with this strategy,“ said, Dr. Michael Montalto, head of Molecular Imaging and Diagnostics Advanced Technologies for Global Research.
“The combination of diagnostics and therapeutics is opening new doors in the fight against cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Through the application of molecular and cell biology to understanding disease, we can provide pharmaceutical companies with more advanced tools to develop more optimal drug therapies for cancer patients,” Dr. Montalto said.
The agreement between GE and Lilly will provide GE with access to clinical tissue samples from unidentified patients enrolled in Lilly’s clinical trials. In turn, Lilly will have access to GE’s advanced technologies in automated tissue-based image analysis and molecular reagents. These tools can be used during drug development to aid Lilly in evaluating the effectiveness of their drug candidates and potentially select patients for future trials.
In addition to helping Lilly identify patients for future trials, the diagnostic tools GE is providing also have the potential to greatly reduce the time and cost of cancer drug development.
The collaboration with Lilly is consistent with GE Healthcare’s Early Health Vision, which is about transforming healthcare delivery from a focus on treating late disease to a focus on adopting an Early Health model of care – where prevention, pre-disease detection, and early diagnosis are the key drivers. GE Healthcare has a strong portfolio of in vivo diagnostic imaging technologies and molecular contrast agents to assist with the detection and diagnosis of cancer, and expanding this strength toward in vitro diagnostics is a natural extension of this strategy.
