NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Caris Life Sciences today announced a strategic collaboration with Debiopharm International to develop a companion diagnostic for an oncology drug being developed by the Swiss biopharmaceuticals firm.
The firms will use Caris' Molecular Intelligence (MI) Transcriptome assay for mRNA analysis to detect rare fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) fusions and identify eligible patients for Debiopharm's FUZE phase II clinical trial of Debio 1347, a selective FGFR inhibitor.
In addition to developing the companion diagnostic, Caris will use its MI Trials service to improve the identification of eligible patients.
The firms did not disclose financial or other details of the agreement.
Caris, based in Irving, Texas, launched the MI Transcriptome assay in February, and the US Food and Drug administration granted it a breakthrough device designation earlier this month.
"This collaboration represents a key milestone in the advancement of a new tumor-agnostic approach," Debiopharm Chief Development Officer Angela Zubel said in a statement. "We believe that a whole-transcriptome assay is particularly relevant to detect oncogene fusions and to identify tumor expression profiles that could benefit from Debio 1347 therapy."
"This agreement supports our vision for optimizing the detection of rare fusion events using RNA and building value on our multi-platform tumor profiling approach," Caris Chief Medical Officer Michael Korn said in a statement. "We continue to develop novel technologies to provide the most comprehensive molecular profiling possible."