NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Biopharmaceutical firm Berg and the US Department of Defense today announced an agreement to discover biomarkers for prostate cancer and to develop more effective treatments for the disease.
The deal is in the form of a Cooperative Research and Development agreement with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences' Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR) and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.
Together, Berg and CPDR will "take a data-driven approach to drive molecular intelligence of prostate cancer by uncovering more accurate biomarkers and better therapies for patients."
Berg is offering its expertise in computational biology to the effort, as well as its Interrogative Biology Platform for the analysis of CPDR's supply of prostate cancer data.
Integrating molecular data directly from patients with clinical and demographic information, the platform can elucidate predictive patterns, providing clinicians with actionable information to inform their treatment decisions, Berg said.
According to Berg, about 238,590 men in the US were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, and about 28,170 died of the disease.