NEW YORK – Personalis said today that it has entered into a research agreement with biopharmaceutical firm Invectys, under which it will provide comprehensive tumor immunogenomics capabilities to facilitate biomarker discovery in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients participating in a clinical trial.
Menlo Park, California-based Personalis will analyze samples from patients enrolled in a Phase II trial assessing the efficacy of Invectys' INVAC-1 as monotherapy or in combination with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib (marketed by Janssen and Imbruvica). INVAC-1 is a DNA plasmid encoding a modified human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) protein.
According to Invectys CEO Pierre Langlade Demoyen, INVAC-1 could become a key component of combination therapy approaches for the treatment of multiple solid and hematologic cancer types. "Our work with Personalis will help us to determine which patients are most likely to respond favorably to these novel treatment regimens," he said in a statement.
"We've seen increasing use of our capabilities for biomarker evaluation in hematologic cancer types. This bodes well as we continue to roll out and onboard customers for our newly launched, universal cancer immunogenomics platform, ImmunoID NeXT," John West, CEO of Personalis, added.
The INVAC-1 trial is now enrolling two patient groups at MD Anderson Cancer Center: 45 who will receive the drug as a monotherapy and another 45 who will receive the therapy in combination with ibrutinib
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.