Quantitative Biomarker Panel Developed to Advance Cancer-Related Drug and Diagnostic Development

Rules-Based Medicine, Inc. (RBM; Austin, TX, USA), a provider of innovative biomarker solutions, reported the global launch of OncologyMAP, a powerful tool developed at the direction of and with funding from the US National Cancer Institute (NCI; Bethesda, MD, USA). OncologyMAP was released to a limited number of key customers in October 2010, and RBM has received positive feedback from clients who report valuable results in their studies for drug retasking, indication expansion, and patient stratification using this cost-effective, comprehensive testing service.

"The use of biomarker tools throughout drug development is a requirement for researchers who must balance leaner R&D budgets with the greater demands for safety, innovation, and success,” said Craig Benson, RBM president and CEO. "From one drop of serum, OncologyMAP can deliver data that could help solve therapeutic and diagnostic dilemmas related to cancer making this biomarker panel an essential component of the development toolkit.”

OncologyMAP provides drug researchers with an accurate and cost-effective means of evaluating the efficacy and safety of therapeutic candidates. The test is validated to clinical laboratory standards enabling biomarker pattern discoveries made in basic research to be reproducibly extended into clinical trials. The use of sensitive, reproducible biomarker patterns as objective measures of drug efficacy and toxicity can accelerate development efforts and facilitate decision-making to avoid costs associated with late-stage drug attrition.

OncologyMAP is based on RBM's proprietary multianalyte profiling (MAP) platform, which quantifies major blood-based biomarkers representing dozens of important biologic pathways. The multiplexing process allows for heightened efficiency while providing accuracy and precision.

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