NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Illumina and Bristol-Myers Squibb announced after the close of the market Friday that they will collaborate on developing and commercializing companion diagnostics to support BMS' oncology drug pipeline.
The companies plan to develop a diagnostic version of Illumina's TruSight Oncology 500, an assay being developed to target most of the known biomarkers for cancer drugs, including tumor mutation burden and miscrosatellite instability. The panel will run on Illumina's NextSeq 550Dx.
"Through our deep understanding of cancer biology and emerging research, we recognize the importance for physicians to know each patient's biomarker status to help fight their cancer in a more personalized way," Saurabh Saha, senior vice president, global head of translational medicine at Bristol-Myers Squibb, said in a statement. "We are excited to partner with Illumina to pursue development of diagnostics that can help predict which patients will have the potential to benefit most from our immunotherapies."
Earlier this week, Illumina announced a separate partnership with Loxo Oncology to develop a pan-cancer companion diagnostic with a different assay, the TruSight 170 panel.