Monday, January 3, 2011

MGH, Johnson & Johnson to collaborate on cancer blood test

By James M. Connolly

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Veridex LLC, a Johnson & Johnson company, today announced a collaboration focused on developing and commercializing a blood test that will help to identify tumor cells.

Veridex, a diagnostics company in Raritan, N.J., said the work will involve development of a next-generation system that will enable use of circulating tumor cell technology as a diagnostic tool for personalizing patient care and to accelerate the process of drug discovery and development.

“This new technology has the potential to facilitate an easy-to-administer, non-invasive blood test that would allow us to count tumor cells, and to characterize the biology of the cells,” said Robert McCormack, head of technology innovation and strategy for Veridex, in a press release.

The partners seek to develop a bench-top system to isolate and explore the biology of rare cells at the protein, RNA and DNA levels. 

Clinical validation and regulatory submissions for future diagnostic applications of this new technology will be guided by Veridex.