Prometheus to Perform Molecular Profiling of Cancer Patients for Bayer Schering Pharma

Bayer Schering Pharma is tapping Prometheus Laboratories for mutational analyses services. Under terms of the services agreement Bayer will provide clinical samples from its studies to Prometheus, which will carry out mutational analyses to determine the presence or absence of existing and novel cancer-related mutations. The aim is to improve patient stratification in clinical studies and speed the development of Bayer’s oncology diagnostics and therapeutics pipelines.

The agreement builds on the firms’ research collaboration and license agreement, signed in March, through which Bayer had access to Prometheus’ CEER oncology diagnostic platform, for use in helping to stratify patients to appropriate drug candidates. The new agreement effectively adds Prometheus’ mutational analysis capabilities to the mix.

“This agreement represents further validation of the importance of our oncology focused CEER and mutational analysis platforms,” states Joseph M. Limber, president and CEO at Prometheus. “The combination of our mutational analysis and CEER platforms that this agreement represents is an important step to providing a more comprehensive analysis to Bayer that may result in improved selection of patients who will benefit the most from specific drug candidates Bayer is developing.”

Prometheus specializes in the development and commercialization of personalized pharmaceutical and diagnostic products. The firm’s primary focus is on the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disorders within the fields of gastroenterology and oncology. Its CEER platform is designed to measure the expression and activation of specific cancer pathways in tissue or blood samples, for use in the selection and evaluation of developmental drugs and for the real-time molecular profiling to monitor the effectiveness of targeted drug therapies.