Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

IMBdx, AstraZeneca Expand Prostate Cancer Liquid Biopsy Partnership

NEW YORK – South Korean liquid biopsy firm IMBdx said Thursday that it is expanding an ongoing collaboration with AstraZeneca under a project called PROSPER 2.0, which aims to improve access to targeted therapies for individuals with metastatic prostate cancer in markets outside the US.

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

IMBdx offers a blood-based next-generation sequencing test called AlphaLiquid HRR, which analyzes circulating tumor DNA in plasma to detect alterations in 15 genes associated with homologous recombination repair. The assay is currently available in various countries including Ukraine, Australia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Colombia, Mexico, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, the company said.

As part of the PROSPER 2.0 project, IMBdx and AstraZeneca are exploring ways to increase clinician and patient awareness of the availability and utility of ctDNA testing to guide the use of targeted therapies in advanced prostate cancer, and of the capabilities of the AlphaLiquid HRR ctDNA test in particular.

IMBdx said it has been developing the test for more than two years, including in a collaborative study with Seoul National University Hospital that provided HRR results for 92 percent of patients using blood samples and demonstrated high concordance with tissue biopsy results.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.