Biomarker Commons

The Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), a landmark biomarker clinical study, has completed enrollment of its initial 600-member cohort of Parkinson's patients and controls, and will launch additional study cohorts to leverage the existing PPMI infrastructure and evaluate multiple potential biomarkers for Parkinson's disease (PD). The first of these new cohorts launches today and will investigate risk factors for PD that may enable diagnosis before the onset of motor symptoms.

Two independent validation studies demonstrate that Pronota’s biomarker CD146 significantly improves the diagnosis of acute heart failure for patients with shortness of breath. The biomarker, measured in blood, provides clinicians with unique additional information allowing better treatment of this challenging group of patients.

Current diagnosis for acute heart failure is limited

Oxford Cancer Biomarkers Ltd (OCB), the UK-based company developing tests that allow medicines to be personalised for the benefit of the cancer patient, recently announced an agreement with AstraZeneca for biomarker discovery, with the potential for further collaboration on validation and development of resulting biomarkers.

OCB will work with an undisclosed AstraZeneca cancer drug to discover biomarkers that have the potential to predict responders and non-responders to the drug. Under the agreement, AstraZeneca has been granted an option to license biomarkers from the programme.

Elevated levels of bilirubin in the blood get attention in the clinic because they often indicate that something has gone wrong with the liver. Now researchers have found that male smokers with low levels of the yellow-tinged chemical are at higher risk for lung cancer and dying from the disease.

A team led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported its findings in a late-breaking abstract at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 in Washington, D.C.

Matrix-Bio Inc., a diagnostics company that uses metabolite profiling to detect cancer and other diseases, recently signed an exclusive global licensing and marketing agreement for metabolomic biomarkers with Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX).

Recently, Firefly BioWorks announced the expansion of its microRNA assay, FirePlex® miRSelect, from a maximum of 23 multiplexed microRNAs to 68.