Cancer Research UK (CRUK), its innovation unit, Cancer Research Horizons, and Guardant Health have announced a collaboration to advance the development and precision of cancer detection and treatment.

The mission-focused collaboration aims to accelerate the discovery and development of cancer drugs and diagnostics for patients.

Affecting 20% of people in the UK, rare cancers are forms of cancer that can occur in unusual places in the body, requiring special treatment.

Challenging to treat, rare cancer types include melanoma skin cancer, kidney cancer, brain tumours, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and pancreatic cancer.

As part of the agreement, the parties will be able to discuss opportunities for collaboration to support CRUK’s research and development activities.

In particular, the agreement will focus primarily on the charity’s clinical trials run by its Centre for Drug Development (CDD), including the DETERMINE trial, as well as other CRUK and Cancer Research Horizon research collaborations.

The DETERMINE trial is the first UK national precision medicine trial investigating rare cancers.

Additionally, CRUK may provide access to data and samples from its CRUK-funded research network to advance Guardant’s technologies, including its proprietary Infinity platform, and to explore other projects to accelerate cancer drug and diagnostic discovery and development.

In addition, Guardant will further expand its partnership with CRUK to combine its biotechnology with a reach of more than 200 clinical trials and studies in over a million people in the UK.

“Partnering with Guardant Health brings exciting potential for us to accelerate our work by applying best-in-class data-driven insights and technologies to our detection and treatment studies,” said Tony Hickson, chief business officer for CRUK and Cancer Research Horizons.

As well as further validating its technologies, the partnership will “[provide] the support needed for those with rare cancers and others who could greatly benefit from precision oncology,” said Helmy Eltoukhy, co-chief executive officer of Guardant Health.

In November, CRUK entered into a multi-project strategic partnership with the KWF Dutch Society to accelerate the development of promising therapeutic agents for cancer.

As part of the agreement, CRUK’s CDD will help to advance first-in-class therapeutics through the clinic to sponsor and manage KWF-supported trials.

https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/cancer_research_uk_and_guardant_collaborate_to_advance_cancer_detection_and_treatment_1504544