NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Two European Union-funded research groups that will spend €12 million ($17.2 million) for colon and breast cancer research and development programs have awarded Agendia €1.3 million to develop molecular diagnostics for guiding personalized treatments, the company said today.
The Rational Therapy for Breast Cancer (RATHER) and the Colon Cancer and Therapeutics (COLTHERES) consortia have awarded funding to several European research institutes and universities and companies, including €1.2 million from COLTHERES to Horizon Discovery.
The COLTHERES funding is focused on response or resistance to targeted therapeutics for colon cancer, while the RATHER project aims to improve treatment for triple negative and lobular breast cancer patients. Both projects will involve clinical partners working with translational research groups to define and perform biomarker-based clinical trials, for which Agendia will develop standardized biomarker tests.
Agendia Chief Scientific Officer Rene Bernards in a statement called the project "a great opportunity to develop new companion diagnostics together with a large group of scientists and physicians to address urgent clinical needs. The unique consortium structures will allow a rapid translation of results from research and discovery into a clinical setting that benefits patients."
Other members of the consortia include the University College Dublin; the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam; Institute Curie, Paris; Malmö University Hospital, Lund; Vall d'Hebron Barcelona; University of Cambridge; OncoMark, Dublin; University of Leuven; Niguarda Ca' Granda Hospital, Milano; IDIBELL Barcelona; University of Liverpool; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics; and the University of Torino School of Medicine.