Monogram and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Enter Collaboration Agreement
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Monogram Biosciences, Inc. has announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to utilize Monogram's eTag™ technology in preclinical and clinical oncology research studies.
The purpose of these studies will be to identify and validate clinical biomarkers and predictive algorithms for disease prognosis and therapeutic response.
Under the agreement, Monogram and Dana-Farber will jointly conduct experiments employing eTag assays to investigate the relationship between signaling pathway activation and clinical responsiveness to targeted drugs in a variety of important cancers.
Monogram will have rights to diagnostic and predictive medicine applications of all resulting inventions.
"Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is on the leading edge of cancer research, and we are extremely pleased to be collaborating with its researchers and physicians under this broad agreement," stated William Young, CEO of Monogram.
"We believe that our eTag technology may open up a completely new approach to the management of serious diseases."
"The collaboration with the world class researchers at Dana-Farber will help us in our mission to match the right drug to the right patient at the right time."
"There is a need for technologies that can better characterize complex networks of interacting proteins in cancer cells," said Lee Nadler, MD, Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research and head of the new Center for Clinical and Translational Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
"The eTag technology may have applications in clinical medicine as well as discovery research and drug development."
"We think the technology is very promising, as a way to effectively match patients with the best treatment for their particular cancer, and as a research tool for understanding fundamental biology and developing novel therapeutics."
"Our investigators are eager to access this technology, and have many studies to which it can be applied."
Monogram's eTag assays enable the analysis of an individual tumor sample at the protein and signaling pathway level.
By understanding which pathways are activated in any given tumor, the assay aims to identify those patients who are most likely to respond to a particular therapy, and ultimately to guide the application of combination therapy targeting multiple pathways concurrently.
"Monogram believes that collaborations such as this are vital to developing the kind of advanced diagnostics and novel therapeutics that will make personalized medicine for individual cancer patients a reality," said Young.
