Roche and Evotec form biomarker alliance

Roche and Evotec, a drug discovery company specialising in development partnerships, are to collaborate on protein-activity based biomarkers for Roche's oncology drugs under development.

Evotec will employ its PhosphoScout platform to discover protein-phosphorylation's that predict favourable dosage and efficacy of targeted cancer drugs in patients. Roche will be responsible for conducting clinical trials, as well as assessing the development of companion diagnostics for patient stratification.

Mike Burgess, global head of oncology at Roche Pharma Research and Exploratory Development, said: "We are very pleased to collaborate with Evotec and benefit from the PhosphoScout technology to identify appropriate pharmacodynamics and patient stratification biomarkers. They are core to the development of targeted therapeutics for cancer therapy."

Under the initial three-year term Roche and Evotec will conduct multiple biomarker programmes for therapeutic antibodies or small molecule inhibitors.