NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Biopharmaceutical firm Epizyme announced today that it has signed on Foundation Medicine to help it identify and enroll non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients in a Phase II trial of its cancer treatment tazemetostat.
The drug is designed to inhibit EZH2, a gene that has been shown to block the activity of several tumor-suppressor genes and is upregulated in many cancers. Under the terms of their agreement, Foundation Medicine will use its SmartTrials Precision Enrollment Program and FoundationOne Heme panel to help Epizyme identify patients with EZH2 mutations and differentiate specific cohorts for the clinical study.
FoundationOne Heme is a targeted NGS panel that uses DNA and RNA sequencing to detect genomic alterations and gene fusions in oncogenes of patients with hematological cancers. The SmartTrials program helps identify specific cancer patients to connect them with clinical trials.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We are pleased to partner with Foundation Medicine, an industry leader and innovator in molecular information and comprehensive genomic profiling, to advance our tazemetostat clinical program and accelerate identification of patients who may benefit from this therapy," Epizyme President and CEO Robert Bazemore said in a statement.