Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA includes DiviTum® in a new study of metastatic breast cancer to study the development of resistance and efficacy of the new drug Ibrance® (palbociclib, Pfizer).
100 women with metastasized breast cancer will be included in the study, with the objective to find markers to identify early development of resistance of today's standard treatment in combination with Ibrance®. By early identification of women who are not responding to treatment, these patients can be offered other therapies and the opportunity for more effective treatment and better outcome. DiviTum® is used to analyze tumor growth rate and treatment efficacy by analysing blood samples from patients before and during therapy. About 450,000 women live with the disease in Europe and the United States. 80% of these patients have hormone-positive breast cancer, which is the type of cancer studied in the current study.
Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine is one of the United States leading universities and cancer institutes. Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in 1889 and has been ranked No. 1 in the United States by U.S. News & World Report in 22 of 27 years. More than 20 Nobel Prize winners derive from Johns Hopkins, which are also the leading university in US in terms of investment in research and development.
"We are pleased that more people see the value of DiviTum® and that we can collaborate with additional, high profile US universities. With DiviTum® we want to provide a tool that faster than current methods can answer if the treatment is effective and beneficial to the patient. The study at Johns Hopkins University is especially valuable as DiviTum® will be used to quickly evaluate the effects of today's standard treatments combined with Ibrance for a large patient group." says Anders Rylander, CEO Biovica.