NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Cancer Research UK today announced it has signed a supply agreement with Illumina to use the firm's sequencing technology in a large British lung cancer clinical trial that aims to advance personalized medicine.
Under the terms of the agreement, Illumina will provide its research-use-only Nextera Rapid Capture Enrichment kits and NGS technology to a multi-arm, early-stage clinical trial — called the National Lung Matrix Trial — being run by Cancer Research UK.
"This is one of the largest ever personalized medicine trials in any cancer, one which attempts to match the right treatments to the right patient based on an in-depth understanding of what makes their own cancer cells grow and survive," Gary Middleton, chief investigator of the National Lung Matrix Trial, said in a statement.
Investigators will sequence a customized set of 28 genes to stratify patients and place them into the most appropriate arm of the trial. AstraZeneca and Pfizer are also partnering with Cancer Research UK to provide the targeted treatments for each arm of the trial.
"Genetic sequencing will provide the information that allows us to routinely pair up patients with this more targeted approach," Ian Walker, head of stratified medicine at Cancer Research UK, said in a statement. "This collaboration will help our researchers to quickly identify the genetic faults underpinning a patient's cancer."
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.