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Moving to multicenter
March 2011
EDIT CONNECT
SHARING OPTIONS:
BILLERICA, Mass.—Aushon BioSystems Inc., a provider of
multiplex immunoassay products and services, has signed a letter of intent to
enter into a diagnostic
development collaboration with Peking University Cancer
Hospital (PUCH) in Beijing, China.
The primary goal of the
collaboration is to develop
predictive diagnostic markers for liver metastases of colorectal cancer
utilizing Aushon's proprietary suite of protein
biomarker detection
technologies and stratification biomarkers for radio-chemotherapy patients. As
part of the deal, PUCH and Aushon will negotiate an
agreement to grant Aushon
exclusive rights In North America and Europe to certain intellectual property
generated from the collaboration.
Aushon serves "nearly all of the leading pharmaceutical
companies," notes Joe Blanchard, the company
's COO, and he adds that these
relationships were key to the decision to collaborate with PUCH.
"Increasingly, multicenter trials include Asia and our
pharma clients had need for assistance. They urged us to form Asian
relationships," Blanchard
says.
Aushon's sample testing service has a menu of more than 300
protein biomarkers and its high-throughput CLIA-certified lab tests "tens
of
thousands of patient samples annually," according to Blanchard. Aushon also
recently announced its partnership with LightArray Biotech, a drug
development
service company located in Wuxi, China, which will enable Aushon to provide its
multiplex biomarker products and services to pharmaceutical
clients in China.
The PUCH research will be conducted under the leadership of
Dr. Jin Gu of PUCH.
Prof. Gu is a well-known expert and clinician on colorectal
cancer and liver metastasis. He leads a team of scientists and physicians
investigating the
mechanisms of colorectal cancer metastasis including the
identification of biomarkers to predict which patients may develop metastatic
disease in the
liver. Gu has established a large library of patient samples, as
well as extensive clinical and post-surgery follow-up data that he and his
staff have
accumulated over the past several years. From 2000 to 2007, PUCH
completed 76 clinical trials, of which 52 were domestic clinical trials, 10
international multicenter clinical trials and 14 clinical trials for medical
equipment. There are currently 35 domestic clinical trials, 11
international
multicenter clinical trials and four clinical trials for medical equipment
taking place at PUCH.
"We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with
Aushon on this critical clinical research program," says Gu.
"Aushon's
technology has already received widespread market acceptance with leading
pharmaceutical companies due to its proven reliability and
performance in
late-stage clinical trials, and has the key attributes we identified for a
multiplex diagnostic platform. We are very optimistic that
this partnership
will lead to the discovery and development of predictive diagnostic markers for
primary colorectal cancer metastases in liver, and
establishment of new
treatment strategies to improve outcomes for our patients."
"We believe
Aushon's technology and expertise are ideally
suited for this diagnostic development program and expect that this will be the
first of several such
technical collaborations with PUCH and other leading
research institutions in Asia," Blanchard adds. He estimates the U.S. oncology
protein biomarker
market at more than $300 million, with the worldwide market
at about $650 million and annual growth at 17 percent.
The Aushon-PUCH collaboration was facilitated by the U.S.
Chinese Anti-Cancer Association (USCACA) whose director, Li Yan, has known
Blanchard for several years.
"When Li
contacted me about this potential collaboration, we
were fortunate we already had the relationship with LightArray in place. Based
on the trends we've
seen and the investments pharmaceutical companies are
making in China, we expect this region to become an increasingly important
market for Aushon,"
Blanchard says.
Code: E031109 Back |
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