Oxford Genome Sciences and University of Oxford to develop new clinical biomarkers for colorectal cancer

OGeS joins consortium focused on the development of new personalised management of colorectal cancer

13-Apr-2006

Oxford Genome Sciences (UK) Ltd (OGeS) announced that it has entered into collaboration with the Department of Clinical pharmacology at the University of Oxford to discover new clinical biomarkers for colorectal cancer (CRC).

The collaboration forms part of a consortium, which was initiated in 2005 with funding from GE Healthcare with the aim of developing an integrated personalised approach to the diagnosis, stratification, treatment and monitoring of CRC patients.

Over the next two years, OGeS plans to play an integral role in the consortium and will apply its proteomics expertise and it proprietary OGAP(tm) database towards two key objectives:

- To identify new approaches for the early differential diagnosis of early stage CRC patients versus late invasive stage cancer patients with liver disease and poor prognosis. If successful this differential diagnosis will lead to patients receiving the most appropriate treatment for the stage of their disease

- To identify additional protein biomarkers of recurring disease with a poor outcome that will determine if a personalised approach based on the use of novel 'targeted' agents will be more effective than standard chemotherapy treatment of CRC patients, which is effective in only a small proportion of patients. OGeS is already working with Biosite Inc. in the US to develop a new improved diagnostic for relapsing CRC based on novel biomarkers which it had previously identified using its OGAP database.

OGeS will develop this new panel of biomarkers by conducting an integrated analysis of protein profiles of blood samples from CRC patients and related genetic variations and risk factors.

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