NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Cancer genome analysis firm Personal Genome Diagnostics said today that it will collaborate with Blueprint Medicines to search for novel kinase targets for cancer drugs.
Personal Genome Diagnostics will use exome sequencing as well as its own proprietary digital karyotyping technology, which it licensed from Johns Hopkins, to analyze copy number changes in cancer genomes.
Blueprint Medicines has built a proprietary genomics platform to identify novel targets and potential combination therapies and has a broad library of novel kinase inhibitor compounds.
The firms plan to analyze a "series of cancer subtypes that have not been examined before," with the goal of "identifying key genomic drivers of cancer and leveraging these insights to develop the next generation of highly selective and tailored kinase inhibitors," Christoph Lengauer, Blueprint's chief scientific officer, said in a statement.
PGDx was founded in 2010 by researchers from Johns Hopkins University. Out of its CLIA-certified facility in Baltimore, it provides patient-specific tumor genome analysis, including exome sequencing, to identify genomic alterations and link them to the underlying cancer biology.