Roche and Evotec announce cancer biomarker alliance

Roche will be allying with Evotec on new research into protein activity-based biomarkers that will inform its future cancer drug development programmes.

The new collaboration aims to build on Roche's established expertise in the personalised medicine field and will last for an initial term of three years, with biomarker programmes to be conducted for therapeutic antibodies and small molecule inhibitors.

Research will utilise Evotec's PhosphoScout platform to discover protein phosphorylations that can be used to predict favourable dosage and efficacy of targeted cancer drugs.

Roche will take responsibility for conducting clinical trials of these drugs and will also be developing companion diagnostics for patient stratification.

Mike Burgess, global head of oncology at Roche Pharma Research and Exploratory Development, said: "We are very pleased to collaborate with Evotec and benefit from the PhosphoScout technology to identify appropriate pharmacodynamics and patient stratification biomarkers."

Earlier this month, Roche announced another alliance that will see it providing new research technology for use by the University of California, Los Angeles.