A partnership announced today between two Cambridge companies,
Foundation Medicine and H3 Biomedicine, is further
evidence of the role precision medicine is playing in fueling the growth
of diagnostics. That is the same idea, which is behind today's announcement of the
multi-year partnership between Foundation Medicine and H3, which is
intended to help find new genetic causes of cancers as well as drug to
address them. Under the agreement, H3 will pay Foundation
Medicine
for access to its genetic data as well as various milestones and
royalties for any drugs developed out of that partnership. While the
dollar amounts and exact time frames are not being disclosed, the deal
affords the Cambridge maker of two cancer diagnostics; FoundationOne
and FoundationOne Heme, yet another source of revenue as the company
works to get the tests covered by insurance companies.
"Large-scale genomic data sets are the key to identifying actionable
targets and addressing the multitude of difficult-to-treat cancers,"
Warmuth said in a statement. "We believe Foundation Medicine offers one
of the most comprehensive cancer genomics knowledge bases available. This
collaborative effort will further empower our state-of-the-art
discovery engines to deliver novel first-in-class medicines and improve
our clinical development strategies by accessing a wealth of clinically
annotated, genomic information at least in part derived from later-stage
and metastatic cancers."
H3, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Japanese drug company, Eisai,
has a 10-year, $200 million commitment which has allowed it to build
its own 48,000 square-foot lab and hire 75 full-time employees to date.
Warmuth said the company is now "looking to expand the investor base"
and is also seeking partners in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. H3
has two lead drug programs, one in blood cancer and one in liver
cancer, for which it hopes to apply this year for approval to begin
clinical trials.
No comments:
Post a Comment