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news.H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute said it is to partner with Merck & Co. to expand its efforts in research and biotech with the goal of developing personalized medicine.
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This collaboration will develop a new research initiative to improve cancer prevention by using molecular technology to enhance the ability to diagnose and treat patients. To enhance Moffitt’s ability to establish this large research initiative the cancer center will form a for-profit company, M2GEN.
This project will involve the collection of tumor tissues and clinical data from thousands of patients. Moffitt and Merck will analyze patients’ tumors to identify the biological markers that are unique to those tumors. By studying and comparing patients’ responses to specific treatments, scientists hope to learn which drugs work best in different patients, enabling them to individualize treatment for patients with various types of cancer.
The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Merck hope the approach will enhance the likelihood of patient improvement and reduce side-effects.
“It is through public-private partnerships like this one that we believe we can advance the discovery, translation and delivery of much-needed personalized therapies for cancer and other diseases,” said Dr Stephen Friend, executive vice president, Oncology and Neuroscience, at Merck.