Life Technologies to Collaborate with Merck Serono

Life Technologies Corp. (Carlsbad, CA, USA) has signed an agreement to collaborate with Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, (Darmstadt, Germany), for current and future companion diagnostics projects. The long-term collaboration aims to develop, obtain regulatory approval, and commercialize companion diagnostics for selected Merck Serono drug development programs. The nonexclusive agreement covers an initial project for oncology and provides for a long-term collaboration across a potentially broad range of Life instrument platforms and a wide range of therapeutic areas. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The agreement constitutes the first collaboration between the two companies and is another step in Life Technologies' strategy to develop its diagnostic business through internal development, collaborations, and select acquisitions. The increasing focus on targeted therapeutics indicates that there is market growth for companion diagnostics (CDx). Life Technologies is well-positioned to provide pharma with flexible, cost effective options for CDx development

The collaboration will seek to combine the biomarkers identified by Merck's translational research with Life Technologies' proprietary platform technologies and to develop companion diagnostics concurrently with Merck's drug development programs. The collaboration will also seek regulatory approval of Merck's drug and Life Technologies' companion diagnostic. Life Technologies offers a variety of platform technologies that support the development of new diagnostics. These technologies span both genetic and proteomic analysis, including next-generation sequencing, Sanger sequencing, real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), and flow cytometry. Some of these have already received clearance by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA; Silver Spring, MD, USA).

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