Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Personalis, Inc., a leader in advanced genomics for cancer, today announced a collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, to investigate novel biomarkers of response and mechanisms of resistance to cancer therapies. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, will utilize Personalis’ newest cancer immunogenomics platform, ImmunoID NeXT™, for clinical biomarker identification and development.
ImmunoID NeXT, through innovative assays and analytics, provides a comprehensive view of each cancer’s genomics and immune microenvironment from a single, limited tumor sample. The platform is an end-to-end solution built for precision oncology biomarker discovery through to clinical applications, enabling simultaneous analysis of cancer mutations, the immune repertoire, neoantigens, tumor escape mechanisms, DNA repair pathways, human leukocyte antigens (including typing, loss of heterozygosity, and somatic mutation detection), tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), oncoviruses, immune checkpoints, gene expression, immune signatures, and other advanced biomarkers.
“Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, is a global leader in cancer therapeutic development and we’re thrilled to collaborate with them to identify the next generation of clinical biomarkers for cancer therapies,” said Richard Chen, MD, CSO of Personalis. “We will work with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, to leverage the NeXT Platform for novel biomarker identification, analysis of therapy resistance mechanisms, patient stratification, combination therapy strategy, and comprehensive molecular categorization of cancers for enabling precision therapy.”
