Biomarker agreement entered into by Verastem and Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings

Our plain-English summary of Biomarker agreement entered into by Verastem and Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings, by C. Attwood (Bioanalysis, 2013).

The study

• Author: C. Attwood
• Journal: Bioanalysis
• Published: 2013;5(5):525
• Type of article: News
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a short news item in a journal's News & Analysis section, not a research study. It was written by Claire Attwood and based on a company press release. It reported that Verastem, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company in Massachusetts, USA, had entered into an agreement with Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) in North Carolina, USA. Under the agreement, LabCorp would validate biomarkers for VS-6063, a Verastem drug that blocks an enzyme called focal adhesion kinase, as part of developing a companion diagnostic test. The item stated that recent research had found that mesothelioma tumors lacking Merlin, a tumor suppressor, are particularly sensitive to focal adhesion kinase inhibitors. That research was not described or cited. The item also reported that VS-6063 had shown clinical activity in a Phase I study in advanced solid tumors and was set to move to Phase II studies in mesothelioma and ovarian cancer in 2013. No patient data or numbers were given. Asbestos was not mentioned, and the item did not say what type of mesothelioma was meant.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: News item (journal news report based on a company press release); not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population. The item concerns two companies: Verastem (MA, USA) and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp; NC, USA).
• Exposure: No asbestos or other exposure was studied. The subject is VS-6063, a small-molecule inhibitor of focal adhesion kinase being developed by Verastem.
• Main results:
  • Verastem entered an agreement with LabCorp to validate biomarkers for VS-6063 in developing a companion diagnostic.
  • The item stated that recent research (not described or cited) found that mesothelioma tumors lacking Merlin, a tumor suppressor, are particularly sensitive to focal adhesion kinase inhibitors.
  • VS-6063 was reported to have shown clinical activity in a Phase I study in advanced solid tumors and to be set to progress to Phase II studies in mesothelioma and ovarian cancer in 2013. No data were given.
• The authors' conclusion: No author conclusion. The item quotes a Verastem executive describing LabCorp as a partner for turning the company's Merlin research into a companion diagnostic for VS-6063.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Biomarker.

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