NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Guardant Health and OncoMed Pharmaceuticals said today that they would collaborate on an immunoncology clinical trial. The companies have developed a custom-designed blood test based on Guardant Health's liquid biopsy technology to look for biomarkers relevant for an anti-RSP03 antibody OncoMed has developed.
Expression of the RSP03 gene, including fusions involving the gene, have been shown to drive tumor growth in several cancer subsets including ovarian, lung, and pancreatic. The clinical trial of the compound will enroll patients with advanced solid tumors whose tumors over express RSP03. In a Phase 1b portion of the trial, OncoMed will analyze the anti-RSP03 compound with chemotherapy in second-line colorectal cancer patients.
"Patients with RSPO3 fusions are thought to have particularly poor outcomes," Guardant CEO Helmy Eltoukhy said in a statement. "Helping OncoMed better identify the patients most likely to respond to anti-RSPO3 without requiring a biopsy is an exciting opportunity to apply our technology where the potential to improve patient prognosis and outcomes is so great."
"Partnering with Guardant Health to identify biomarker-selected patients with a simple, accurate blood test for our ongoing Phase 1a/1b clinical trial will increase our chances of including patients who may benefit from treatment with this investigational agent and will enable us to gain a better understanding of anti-RSPO3's clinical potential earlier in its development," Ann Kapoun, OncoMed's vice president of translational medicine, said in a statement.