NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – BioMarker Strategies today announced it is being granted a $1.5 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase II award to further develop its companion diagnostic for melanoma.
The grant from the National Cancer Institute will go toward the Baltimore, Md.-based firm's refinement of its PathMap assay and ex vivo protocols developed under a Phase I SBIR contract. The new funding will also support validation of PathMap in human clinical samples, BioMarker Strategies said.
PathMap is a pathway-based test to aid in choosing the most appropriate treatment for melanoma.
The assay uses a patient's live tumor cells "to provide better information, including patient resistance to therapy, to support targeted therapy selection for individual melanoma patients," BioMarker Strategies Founder and CEO Douglas Clark said in a statement.