NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Eutropics said today that it will use its companion diagnostic methodology to help Tolero Pharmaceuticals develop therapeutics for hematological malignancies.
Under the terms of the agreement, Eutropics will use its Praedicare-Dx biomarker platform to support the development of Tolero's alvocidibm, a Phase III compound that has demonstrated clinical activity in patients with acute myelogenous leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
According to the partners, preliminary results in CLL patient studies have shown that the Praedicare-Dx test is predictive of patient response to alvocidib. We "believe that identifying patients most likely to respond to alvocidib will benefit patients suffering from leukemia and expand available therapeutic options," said David Bearss, CEO of Tolero, in a statement.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Eutropics' PraediCare Dx technology is based on an approach developed at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute called BH3 profiling, which uses peptides derived from the BH3 domains of BH3-only proteins to interrogate the mitochondria of cancer cells to determine how they avoid apoptosis. The company is developing tests based on the PraediCare Dx technology for use in treating AML, CLL and multiple myeloma.