Monogram teams with Merck KGaA on Erbitux cancer study

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Oct. 24 - Monogram Biosciences, Inc. announced Monday that it has entered into an agreement with Merck KGaA to conduct a cancer biomarker study with application to Erbitux, Merck's antibody that targets the epidermal growth factor receptor found on cancer cells.

According to a company news release, Merck will make payments to Monogram for the project. Other financial details were not disclosed.

Monogram will utilize its proprietary eTag assays to test formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor samples from patients with colorectal cancer before they are treated with Erbitux to evaluate the utility of these assays in identifying patients who would most likely benefit from Erbitux, Merck's IgG1 monoclonal antibody that specifically targets the epidermal growth factor receptor found on many cancer cells.

"We believe that predictive diagnostics will play an expanding role in clinical testing and clinical practice," William D. Young, Monogram's chairman and chief executive officer said in the release.

"Tests like our eTag assays may empower physicians, benefit patients and enhance clinical medicine by linking molecular analysis of the individual patient's disease to the prescription of critical drugs like Erbitux," he added.

This project is one of nine collaborations that South San Francisco, Calif.-based Monogram has had with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in oncology. The alliances have focused on the ability of eTag assays to identify activated drug targets or signal pathways and their correlation with drug activity in a cell line, xenograft and human clinical tumor samples.

Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany, is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company with sales of €5.9 billion in 2004.

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