J&J; Snaps Up Rare Cell Capture And Analysis Technology From Mass General

Article preview from In-Vivo- January 1, 2011

Mass General has signed a $30 million deal with two units of J&J to develop a new system for capturing and analyzing circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The collaboration aims to develop a standardized diagnostic platform for biomarker analysis of DNA, RNA, or protein from tumor cells collected noninvasively. J&J will take the indications for its current CTC system, CellSearch, and migrate them to the new platform.

J&J Snaps Up Rare Cell Capture And Analysis Technology From Mass General

Article preview from In-Vivo- January 1, 2011

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has signed a five-year, $30 million deal with Johnson & Johnson's cancer diagnostic device unit Veridex LLC to develop a third-generation microfluidics-based system for capturing and analyzing circulating tumor cells (CTCs). [201120004] The program will be jointly managed at J&J by Veridex and Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical R&D LLC's Ortho Biotech Oncology Research & Development (OB-ORD) as part of a two-year-old drug-device convergence initiative within J&J. The collaboration aims to develop and obtain regulatory approvals for a standardized diagnostic platform that will be able to conduct biomarker analysis on DNA, RNA, or protein from tumor cells collected noninvasively – and presumably collected repeatedly during the course of cancer therapy.

Veridex currently sells a system, CellSearch, which counts CTCs in a blood sample, for use in cancer prognosis. But CellSearch has only a rudimentary capability for analyzing molecular abnormalities of tumor cells. J&J's rationale for seizing on this opportunity now is two-fold: the technology for analyzing rare cells is emerging to a point where it can provide additional relevant clinical information from very small numbers of tumor cells isolated from the blood; and a significant number of targeted molecular therapies are emerging in clinical testing and onto the market that invite such monitoring before and during treatment.

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