Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[hutschi]

Bayer supports cancer biomarker research in Europe
Bayer HealthCare and University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf are the main coordinators of the international consortium to validate blood-based biomarker technologies

Leverkusen, April 23, 2015 – Bayer HealthCare and University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) are the main coordinators of the newly founded international consortium CANCER-ID to develop and validate novel blood-based biomarker technologies in cancer. The five-year project will focus on establishing commonly agreed standards for the isolation, identification and analysis of novel circulating biomarkers with the aim to improve the development of personalized medicines for cancer patients. CANCER-ID is a public-private partnership supported by Europe’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).

Blood-based biomarkers such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), circulating free tumor DNA (cfDNA) and microRNAs (miRNAs) are potential indicators for the tumor burden of patients living with cancer. Derivation of these markers from blood may offer an additional invaluable tool for modern cancer therapy: apart from being of high importance when tumor biopsies are not accessible, blood-based tests may allow a continuous follow-up of disease markers offering a means to closely monitor the efficacy of treatment and potentially guide the selection of therapy.

“CANCER-ID is an excellent example of a project in which a public-private partnership enables a collaborative research approach to come up with novel concepts in modern cancer therapy”, said Dr. Thomas Schlange, Senior Scientist of Global Biomarker Research at Bayer HealthCare Global Drug Discovery and Coordinator of CANCER-ID. “The consortium brings together a large experienced team of biomarker experts from academia and industry as well as smaller companies creating a Europe-wide network of complementary capabilities that extends far beyond the scope of traditional ‘one-on-one’ industry-academia collaborations.”

Important challenges for the development of all circulating biomarkers are assay sensitivity, specificity and standardization as well as validation. In the last phase of the project, the validated assays will be deployed in controlled clinical studies to prove their broad applicability and clinical utility in the treatment of patients living with cancer.

“Blood-based analysis of tumor derived cells and nucleic acids offer a novel concept of “liquid biopsies” which allows to receive real-time information relevant to cancer diagnosis and therapy”, said Prof. Klaus Pantel, Head of the Department of Tumor Biology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, and the academic lead of the CANCER-ID consortium. “The CANCER-ID project fills the substantial gap between basic research focused on novel methods for the detection and characterization of circulating tumor cells and nucleic acids and the development of robust validated assays required to bring the liquid biopsy concept into the clinic.”

The CANCER-ID consortium consists of pharma and non-pharma industrial companies, universities and clinical trial institutes, as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from all over Europe. The 33 consortium partners are all key players in their fields constituting a unique network of experts in the areas of tumor biology, biomarker development, clinical sciences and bioinformatics. The in-kind contributions to the project of around 8.2 million EUR by the industrial partners are complemented by IMI-funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme resulting in a total budget of EUR 14.5 million.

About the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is working to improve health by speeding up the development of, and patient access to, innovative medicines, particularly in areas where there is an unmet medical or social need. It does this by facilitating collaboration between the key players involved in healthcare research, including universities, the pharmaceutical and other industries, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), patient organisations, and medicines regulators.

IMI is a partnership between the European Union and the European pharmaceutical industry, represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). Through the IMI 2 programme, IMI has a budget of €3.3 billion for the period 2014-2024. Half of this comes from the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020. The other half comes from large companies, mostly from the pharmaceutical sector; these do not receive any EU funding, but contribute to the projects ‘in kind’, for example by donating their researchers’ time or providing access to research facilities or resources.
The research leading to these results has received support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n° [115749], resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies’ in kind contribution.

More info: www.imi.europa.eu

About Bayer HealthCare
The Bayer Group is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. Bayer HealthCare, a subgroup of Bayer AG with annual sales of around EUR 20.0 billion (2014), is one of the world’s leading, innovative companies in the healthcare and medical products industry and is based in Leverkusen, Germany. The company combines the global activities of the Animal Health, Consumer Care, Medical Care and Pharmaceuticals divisions. Bayer HealthCare’s aim is to discover, develop, manufacture and market products that will improve human and animal health worldwide. Bayer HealthCare has a global workforce of 60,700 employees (Dec 31, 2014) and is represented in more than 100 countries. More information is available at www.healthcare.bayer.com.

Follow us on facebook: www.facebook.com/healthcare.bayer
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BayerHealthCare

Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.