BioMarker Strategies Announces Phase II National Cancer Institute Grant to Continue Development of Companion Diagnostic Test to Help Select Optimal Therapy for Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

NCI Small Business Innovation Research grant totals $1.98 million over two years

ROCKVILLE, Md.--()--BioMarker Strategies, LLC, today announced that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded the Company Phase II of a Fast Track Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for development of PathMAP® NSCLC as a companion diagnostic test to facilitate selection of optimal therapy for individual patients with non-small cell lung cancer. The grant totals $1.98 million over two years.

“The challenge for oncologists treating patients with non-small cell lung cancer is to determine which individual patients are most likely to benefit from which targeted therapy or combination of therapies,” said Jerry Parrott, President and CEO of BioMarker Strategies. “The use of molecularly targeted agents such as the EGFR inhibitor erlotinib can help patients keep their cancer in check. However for most patients the emergence of resistance mechanisms ultimately results in the progression of disease.”

“PathMAP is a companion diagnostic assay that uses a patient’s live solid tumor cells to provide information about the response of individual tumors to targeted treatments at the tumor cell signaling level,” Mr. Parrott said. “This includes information about resistance to therapy and can support the optimal selection of targeted treatments and combinations for individual patients with solid tumor cancers.”

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with an estimated 155,870 deaths in 2017. Non-small cell lung cancer is responsible for approximately 80% of these deaths.

The SnapPath and PathMAP technologies are ideally suited to assess response to targeted drugs in development for the treatment of patients with solid tumor cancers. The BioMarker Strategies business model is focused on using the Company’s proprietary ex vivo technology to provide research services to companies developing these treatments.

About BioMarker Strategies

BioMarker Strategies has developed SnapPath®, the only cancer diagnostics system that automates and standardizes functional ex vivo profiling of live solid tumor cells from fresh biopsies or other fresh, unfixed samples such as xenografts or tumorgrafts. The SnapPath Cancer Diagnostics System is an automated and highly customizable fluidics-based system consisting of a compact bench-top instrument and a single-use cartridge for required consumables and reagents. The SnapPath system generates purified populations of live solid tumor cells from fresh unfixed tissue samples, and keeps them alive on the instrument to enable generation of highly predictive biomarker tests, which the Company has named PathMAP® Functional Signaling Profiles.

PathMAP Functional Signaling Profiles, such as PathMAP® NSCLC, represent a new class of biomarker tests, which are based on the dynamic and predictive signaling information available only from live cells. They are useful in identifying and understanding mechanisms of acquired resistance, and they are highly predictive of individual tumor response to targeted therapies. BioMarker Strategies also believes that PathMAP Functional Signaling Profiles will prove highly predictive of individual tumor response to immunotherapeutic approaches and combinations. The capabilities of SnapPath and the Functional Signaling Profiles it enables are available for use in preclinical studies in tumorgraft and other model systems, and in early clinical studies to assess pharmacodynamic changes in the solid tumors of individual patients. For more information about BioMarker Strategies, please see www.biomarkerstrategies.com.

Patents covering the SnapPath Cancer Diagnostics System have been granted in the United States, Europe (also validated in 10 individual European countries), Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. A patent has also been officially allowed and is proceeding to grant in Canada.

Patents covering the PathMAP Functional Signaling Profile technology have been granted in Europe, Australia, Japan and Singapore. A patent has also been officially allowed and is proceeding to grant in the United States.

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this press release includes our projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. In some cases, forward-looking statements may be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “projects,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue”, etc. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or achievement and involve certain risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual future results and trends may differ materially from what is projected here.

Contacts

BioMarker Strategies
Jerry Parrott, 301-938-4043
jparrott@biomarkerstrategies.com

Release Summary

BioMarker Strategies receives $1.98 million National Cancer Institute Phase II grant for diagnostic test to help select optimal treatment for lung cancer

Contacts

BioMarker Strategies
Jerry Parrott, 301-938-4043
jparrott@biomarkerstrategies.com