NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — Quest Diagnostics has licensed a biomarker for prostate cancer from Epigenomics, which it plans to use to develop a molecular diagnostic test for diagnosing the disease, Epigenomics said today.
The agreement gives Quest the rights to use the GSTP1 DNA methylation biomarker in order to both develop and market the diagnostic test, which will be performed using patient tissue samples.
Quest licensed the rights to an Epigenomics biomarker for colorectal cancer in 2008 in order to develop a test to help detect that disease.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.
The clinical lab giant has experience in developing DNA methylation diagnostic tests. It currently offers two such tests, one for Prader-Willi syndrome and one for Angelman syndrome, both of which are neurological epigenetic disorders that may be caused by faulty DNA methylation.