NEW HAVEN, Conn., Sept. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- HistoRx, Inc., announced today that it has entered into a research collaboration with the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG), a National Cancer Institute-funded clinical cooperative group. Under the terms of the agreement, HistoRx will provide RTOG researchers access to HistoRx’s AQUA(R) technology for biomarker analysis and will develop customized immunohistochemical assays to be used by RTOG in investigating the relationship between specific protein biomarkers and clinical responsiveness in brain tumor patients. HistoRx intends to commercialize assays and reagents developed in the course of the collaboration for clinical use as predictive diagnostics.
The RTOG studies will use a combination of high-throughput tissue microarrays, multiplex analysis, and AQUA(R) analysis-based assays to determine whether brain tumor patients are likely to respond to a specific targeted therapy and whether the biomarkers under investigation may be used to predict survival.
“We selected HistoRx’s AQUA(R) technology based on its unique ability to measure protein biomarker expression and localization in diseased tissue sections in a precisely quantitative, reproducible, and standardized way,” said Arnab Chakravarti, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the RTOG Translational Research Program. “By eliminating the subjective interpretation inherent in conventional qualitative immunohistochemical analysis, we expect this collaboration will provide a substantial boost to our research in brain cancer by enabling RTOG researchers to reveal stronger, more reliable statistical correlations linking protein biomarker expression with prediction of patient response to therapy and disease outcome.”
“As the relationship between protein expression patterns and disease gains an expanding role in new drug and diagnostic development and in the way physicians treat patients and individualize therapeutic regimens, we continue to advance our goal of replacing conventional immunohistochemistry with AQUA(R) analysis, a more precise and consistent tool that is enabling pathologists and clinicians to integrate data from predictive biomarker studies confidently into research, diagnosis, and patient treatment,” said Rana K. Gupta, CEO of HistoRx. “We are pleased to have reached this agreement with such a renowned organization as The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group and to have its endorsement of the AQUA(R) technology’s predictive power and potential for developing companion diagnostic and prognostic assays.”
About HistoRx (www.historx.com)
HistoRx is a systems pathology company developing and commercializing quantitative biomarker analysis technology that provides exceptional measurement and localization of proteins in their natural context within tissue. The pioneering HistoRx proprietary AQUA(R) (Automated Quantitative Analysis) technology is the first platform capable of measuring biomarker concentration with subcellular resolution to generate more precise, efficient answers about the safety and effectiveness of new therapeutics in development and to enable development of companion diagnostic tests for targeted therapies. HistoRx services are used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies throughout the drug discovery, preclinical study, and clinical development continuum. HistoRx has two lines of diagnostic products in development: HistoRx companion diagnostic products are linked to partners’ drug candidates in development to predict prognostic outcome; and HistoRx is independently developing AQUA(R)-based diagnostics for the clinical diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment management of complex diseases.
About RTOG
The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) is a clinical research enterprise of the American College of Radiology (ACR), located in the ACR Philadelphia, PA office. RTOG is a multi-institutional international clinical cooperative group funded primarily by the National Cancer Institute. RTOG has over 35 years of experience in conducting clinical trials and is comprised of over 280 major research institutions in the United States and Canada. The group currently is conducting more than 40 active studies that involve radiation therapy alone or in conjunction with surgery and/or chemotherapeutic drugs or which investigate quality of life issues and their effects on the cancer patient.
CONTACT: Mary Moynihan M2Friend Biocommunications (802) 951-9600 mary@m2friend.com
HistoRx, Inc.
CONTACT: Mary Moynihan of M2Friend Biocommunications, for HistoRx, Inc.,+1-802-951-9600, mary@m2friend.com
Web site: http://www.historx.com//
