Biomarker Commons

When Colin Hill’s father was diagnosed with later-stage prostate cancer last summer, he was treated the same as every other patient with the illness.

This standardized approach bothered Hill, who believes medicine should approach each patient’s illness as unique, with medication tailored to the person’s history and biology.

“You show up to the hospital, and it’s like Groundhog Day,” Hill said, with patients being cared for the same way, over and over again. “It’s this outdated standard of care created for this hypothetical average patient. But no one’s an average patient.”

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (BIPI) today announced results of two surveys that explored how pulmonologists and pathologists are incorporating biomarker testing into the care of patients with lung cancer. The results point to an increased role of these physicians in biomarker testing as well as greater multidisciplinary collaboration. However, they also reveal that an opportunity exists to improve how soon these tests are requested and to identify challenges with testing, including collecting a sufficient amount and quality of lung tissue.

KineMed Inc. (www.kinemed.com) today announced the renewal of a non-exclusive research collaboration with Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) for the advancement of novel approaches towards metabolic disease, in particular Type II Diabetes. The collaboration will employ KineMed’s unique dynamic proteomics technology platform to map the impact of potential drug candidates on specific metabolic pathways.

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recently announced a new approach to measuring quality that will provide a more sensitive gauge of risk factors and make it possible to create clinically meaningful incentives for providers to improve disease prevention.

GE Healthcare recently announced that Clarient Diagnostic Services, Inc., a GE Healthcare company, will begin offering a next-generation sequencing assay focused on solid tumor targets for use in clinical trials. This assay will empower researchers to perform prospective and retrospective analysis to better understand which patients will respond to particular therapies, to help stratify patient populations for ongoing clinical trials, and to aid early research efforts.

Nancy Davenport-Ennis, founder and CEO of the National Patient Advocate Foundation, recently addressed attendees at the BIOVISION conference in Lyon, France on personalized medicine and e-health technology and engaged healthcare stakeholders from across the globe on the future of e-health and the impact technology integration will have on the lives of patients.