SRI International has announced a personalized medicine program to develop biomarkers for cancer. The SRI program is part of a multi-year collaboration with Pentax Corporation, a developer of optical electronic products and medical instruments. The ultimate goal is to develop medical diagnostic tools for therapeutic intervention in the treatment of cancer.

“As indicators of specific disease states, biomarkers offer the potential of early detection and treatment of serious medical conditions,” said Nathan Collins, Ph.D., executive director of drug discovery in SRI’s Biosciences Division.

“Biomarkers are new tools being used to accelerate drug development and guide therapy, and we believe that this important research initiative will accelerate early detection of certain cancers and selection of personalized treatment options in the clinical setting.”

The multi-year, multi-million-dollar collaboration provides research funding and research and development milestone payments from Pentax to SRI, as well as royalties on sales of products that may result.

“This collaboration with SRI, a research institute with a significant presence in cancer drug discovery, strengthens Pentax’s position in the life sciences arena,” said Akira Yamamoto, research head at the Pentax Incubation Center and program director for the Pentax–SRI collaboration. “Pentax and SRI are jointly addressing new opportunities in personalized medicine by developing diagnostic tools to assist in rapid and accurate selection of therapeutic options for treatment on an individual patient basis.”

A collaboration team has been formed between the Pentax Incubation Center and SRI International. In addition, Pentax is working at SRI in Menlo Park, Calif. as part of SRI’s International Fellowship Program.