AstraZeneca enters new research agreement with Immunicon

AstraZeneca’s recent spate of collaborations with smaller research and biotechnology companies has shown no sign of abating, as it has announced another partnership – this time with Immunicon, a rare cell analysis company.

The two companies will work together to develop methodologies for the detection and quantifying of certain types of cell that are “potentially valuable biomarkers” for the creation of new targeted drugs.

Additionally, AstraZeneca and Immunicon have signed a master laboratory services agreement that will see Immunicon characterising tumour cells at a molecular level in five projects.

Leon Terstappen, Immunicon’s chief scientific officer, remarked: “We hope that the new assays that we plan to develop under the research agreement will help to accelerate AstraZeneca’s therapy development by assessing the presence of their treatment targets and earlier determination of the effectiveness of these therapies.”

Donna Johnstone, pre-clinical director of cancer translational medicine at AstraZeneca, added: “The ability to molecularly characterize circulating tumor cells is a key advance in the era of targeted therapies.”

“Our collaboration with Immunicon will significantly enhance our research base in this core area,” she concluded.

Last week, AstraZeneca announced two new partnerships within the space of two days. Galapagos NV was brought in to enhance AstraZeneca’s ability to discover drugs for inflammatory and respiratory diseases, while Pozen a deal was signed with to develop a new combination therapy for chronic pain involving naproxen and esmeprazole.

In addition, AstraZeneca’s product pipeline – which has suffered a number of setbacks in the last few years – will be strengthened further with the completed acquisition of Cambridge Antibody Technology, the UK-based company that discovered Humira, the drug licensed to Abbott.

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