Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT), the cancer-focused development and commercialisation company, and The University of Manchester today announce the establishment of an alliance with AstraZeneca to develop serological pharmacodynamic (PD) biomarkers.
The alliance aims to investigate biomarkers of tumour cell death using specialist PD assays and may lead to new serological PD biomarkers.
Investigations will be carried out at the laboratory of the Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group at the Paterson Institute of Cancer Research, University of Manchester. CRT has exclusive rights to commercialise novel biomarkers identified in the course of the three-year research collaboration. This collaboration includes support for 5 full-time research scientists and builds on the clinical pharmacology fellowship programme announced by CRT and The University of Manchester on 20 November 2006.
Within the alliance the Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group, jointly led by Professor Caroline Dive and Dr Malcolm Ranson, will provide cutting edge expertise in PD assay development and implementation. The group specialises in using immunohistochemical, flow cytometric and ELISA-based techniques to progress and validate biomarkers related to cancer. These expertises have previously been used to validate biomarkers of angiogenesis and cell death that are now being employed in a clinical trial setting.