Biocartis and Amgen Shake Hands on Another Cancer Diagnostics Deal

Biocartis will use its expertise in molecular diagnostics to produce a companion diagnostic test for Amgen’s upcoming cancer drug.

Biocartis has signed its second agreement with US pharma giant, Amgen, to develop a companion diagnostic to test the suitability of a drug for a specific patient. Both deals will make use of Biocartis’ Idylla platform, a fully automated sample-to-result system that offers accurate and reliable molecular information from almost any biological sample. News of the partnership has sparked a 2.6% rise in Biocartis’ stock price.

This marks an exciting few months for Biocartis, which raised €80M through a private equity placement of shares last November, quickly followed by its first companion diagnostics agreement with Amgen in December.

The test will support a new oncology compound that is being developed by Amgen for the treatment of certain solid tumors. The company will have to compete with the growing liquid biopsies field, with British biotech, ANGLE, leading the way with its ‘sample to answer’ liquid biopsy, which could save us $5000 per prostate cancer patient. Elsewhere, Oxford BioDynamics has developed a blood biopsy called EpiSwitch to test for breast cancer using epigenetic biomarkers.

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