Foundation Medicine plans to provide comprehensive genomic profiling for eligible veterans living with advanced cancer under a five-year, $111.5 million contract awarded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The contract, awarded under the Veterans Affairs National Precision Oncology Program (NPOP), encompasses all of Foundation Medicine’s available tests—including FoundationOne CDx…

Researchers say they have discovered 52 new genetic changes linked to osteoarthritis, which doubles the number of genetic regions associated with the disorder. A team from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, GlaxoSmithKline, and colleagues analyzed the genomes of over 77,000 people with osteoarthritis and reported their findings (“Identification of new therapeutic targets for osteoarthritis through…

GenomOncology said today that its proprietary match algorithm and extensive Knowledge Management System (KMS) application programming interface (API) suite will be used by Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine to provide real-time clinical trial recommendations to clinical researchers treating IU patients, through a partnership whose value was not disclosed. GenomOncology said…

Signaling growing interest in personalized oncology treatments as well as diagnostics, Roche plans a $2.4 billion acquisition that will expand its majority stake in Foundation Medicine into full ownership of the cancer-focused molecular diagnostics developer. Under the deal, Roche and Foundation Medicine said, they plan to combine their expertise in…

Five organizations focused on engaging cancer patients have joined with the Harvard Business School Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator to launch a pilot program designed to advance precision medicine across cancers. The Accelerator said it has begun testing the “Right Track,” designed to assist cancer patients on their treatment journey by…

Precision Therapeutics said today it agreed to acquire all shares of Helomics, up from its current 25% stake, in a deal designed to catapult the buyer into leadership in precision oncology. Minneapolis-based Precision Therapeutics has signed a letter of intent to buy the remaining Helomics shares it did not currently…

Prognostic test maker SkylineDx has announced a collaboration with Mayo Clinic to assist in the development of novel diagnostic tests intended to aid clinicians in the selection of therapies and in the care of patients with melanoma. The work will focus on optimizing and developing an algorithm to identify risk…

Foundation Medicine said today its comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) assays will be used by the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) to inform patient eligibility for oncology clinical trials through EORTC's Screening Patients for Efficient Clinical Trial Access (SPECTA) program. Under an agreement whose value was not…

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has committed an additional $46 million toward 87 new blood cancer research projects at institutions worldwide. The new funding will increase to 254 the number of grants in LLS's total active research portfolio—which according to the society represents more investment in blood cancer research…

ArcherDX announced that it will work with Celgene to develop and commercialize a next-generation sequencing-based companion diagnostic for the investigational drug CC-122 for indications in Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL). “We look forward to this collaboration arrangement with Celgene to deliver on the promise of precision medicine in a…

Caris Life Sciences is accusing Foundation Medicine in a federal lawsuit of infringing on five Caris patents in the development of its cancer assays FoundationOne®, FoundationACT® and FoundationOne® Heme. “As a result of Defendant’s infringement and the threat of its continued infringement, Caris faces a substantial risk of irreparable harm,”…

Precision medicine based on tumor-only sequencing is more precise for people of European decent—and less precise for those whose ancestry is from Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to a study. Researchers from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, and the Keck School of…

Foundation Medicine and Caris Life Sciences will alert physicians to patients who are eligible for the National Cancer Institute’s Phase II NCI-MATCH (Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice) study, through separate collaborations announced this week. The companies said they will inform the physicians, who will work from more than 1,100 clinical…

The more diverse the digestive tract bacteria, the slower the progression of metastatic melanoma in patients treated with immunotherapy, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported today. At the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, the researchers presented results from a…

German clinical-stage biopharma company Affimed and MD Anderson today announced a development and commercialization agreement in immuno-oncology that will evaluate Affimed’s bispecific antibodies in combination with the natural killer cell (NK) technology of MD Anderson. Affimed’s calls its bispefic antibodies “TandAbs” due to their tandem antibody structure, which is designed…