Collaboration to Develop Diagnostic Tests for Breast Cancer

A research collaboration for the discovery and development of in vitro diagnostic tests for the early detection of breast cancer has been announced by Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL, USA) and Europroteome AG (Henningsdorf, Germany).

The collaboration will seek to identify novel markers for breast cancer diagnosis and potential screening and to develop tests for use on Abbott's automated instrument systems. Under the agreement, Europroteome will apply advanced proteomic and bioinformatic technologies to analyze serum samples from women with breast
cancer. Data will be aligned with a panel of cancer markers from Abbott. Combinations of markers will be selected for further development and integration into Abbott's instrument platforms, used widely in hospitals and clinical laboratories throughout the world.

Abbott will make upfront and milestone payments to Europroteome and
provide commercial assays and instruments. Abbott will have an option for a royalty-bearing license to the results from the research collaboration and will be responsible for commercial assay development and worldwide sales and marketing.

"We believe this collaboration will further enhance our ability to
develop important diagnostic tools for the early detection of breast cancer, which is key to successful treatment intervention,” said Edward L. Michael, president, Abbott Molecular Diagnostics. "We are impressed by Europroteome's approach to integrate diagnostic industry platform requirements into the discovery strategy.”


Europroteome is a product-focused biopharmaceutical company with an
associated network of oncology experts. The firm operates a state-of-the-art proteomics and gene-expression laboratory in Berlin-Hennigsdorf, Germany. Europroteome's mission is to advance the development of cancer drugs and diagnostics based on a unique discovery and validation process that merges both molecular and clinical data. Europroteome founded and operates the Clinical Cancer Network (CCN), which is one of the largest, best-organized and most interactive networks of its kind. The CCN currently consists of
experts from about 20 European institutions and is a unique source of medical and scientific know-how.




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