Metamark Genetics and Definiens Form Partnership to Develop Cancer Diagnostics

(Cambridge, MA, USA) a privately held oncology molecular diagnostic company, and Definiens (Munich, Germany) a health image-intelligence company, announced a development and commercialization partnership. The partnership combines Metamark's proprietary multiplex protein detection platform with image analysis technology developed jointly with Definiens to deliver innovative prognostic and predictive assays for early-stage cancers.

"We see great synergy in combining Definiens' technology and expertise with Metamark's unique understanding of tumor heterogeneity and insight into the molecular drivers regulating tumor formation and aggression. We believe that this partnership will enable us to codevelop and implement unique and important image analysis tools," said Eric Devroe, PhD, vice president of business & strategy development for Metamark.

Metamark's quantitative diagnostic approach can identify small regions of molecularly aggressive cancer cells within an otherwise indolent tumor. The company is addressing the "heterogeneous" nature of tumors not only between one patient and the next, but also within an individual patient's tumor by developing a portfolio of prognostic and predictive assays.

Definiens has made major achievements in the field of biomarker development based on its robust and scalable image analysis framework enabling scientists and clinicians to extract rapidly comprehensive biomarker and morphology expression profiles and to identify a relevant subset of descriptors by correlating them against patient outcomes.

"The capability to provide detailed readouts from tissue analysis is opening up new gateways for developing diagnostic assays as we enter the age of personalized medicine. We believe the Definiens Developer XD and Tissue Studio software will enable Metamark to classify tumor heterogeneity of multiplexed tissue stains and derive prognostic and predictive assays," said Thomas Colarusso, vice president of sales & operations for Definiens.

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Metamark Genetics, Inc.
Definiens