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Bayer Schering Pharma, Prometheus Reach Agreement on Oncology Mutational Analyses

By a GenomeWeb staff reporter

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Prometheus Laboratories and Bayer Schering Pharma today said they have executed an oncology-focused mutational analyses services agreement, building on a deal reached between the two parties earlier this year.

Information gleaned from the new agreement may lead to better patient stratification in clinical studies and hasten the development of new cancer diagnostics and treatments, Prometheus said in a statement.

Under the deal, Bayer will provide samples that have been sourced from clinical trials. Prometheus will carry out mutational analyses to characterize the presence or absence of mutations in the samples that may be associated with cancer.

Bayer will pay Prometheus for each mutational analysis it performs, with payment amounts based on the complexity of the analysis. No further financial details of the deal were disclosed.

In March, the two companies entered a research collaboration and licensing agreement bringing together Prometheus' oncology diagnostic CEER platform and Bayer's extensive oncology pipeline. The goal of the deal, which could net Prometheus as much as $160 million, is to develop tools to stratify patients and direct them to the correct drug treatment, and to accelerate the development of new oncology diagnostics and therapeutics.

The CEER platform measures the expression and activation of specific cancer pathways using blood or tissue samples.

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