Companion Diagnostics and the Drug-Diagnostic Codevelopment Model

Trends in interorganizational transactions in personalized medicine development

Personalized medicine is an innovative concept that allows patients with a validated companion diagnosis (CoDx) to receive treatment using the most suitable drug. Currently, a major movement in the pharmaceutical industry involves the integrated use of multiple resources from external sources. To ascertain preferable interorganizational collaborations and their suitable exits, we compared the related transactions in personalized and nonpersonalized cancer drugs. We found that there were significantly more of some alliance deals in personalized medicine, and that market licenses, one of the exits, were well correlated with other alliances only in personalized medicine. Furthermore, four types of collaboration mode were identified, and more active collaborations with external partners were found to lead to more successful outcomes in personalized medicine development.

Strategic R&D transactions in personalized drug development

Although external collaboration capability influences the development of personalized medicine, key transactions in the pharmaceutical industry have not been addressed. To explore specific trends in interorganizational transactions and key players, we longitudinally surveyed strategic transactions, comparing them with other advanced medical developments, such as antibody therapy, as controls. We found that the financing deals of start-ups have surged over the past decade, accelerating intellectual property (IP) creation. Our correlation and regression analyses identified determinants of financing deals among alliance deals, acquisition deals, patents, research and development (R&D) licenses, market licenses, and scientific papers. They showed that patents positively correlated with transactions, and that the number of R&D licenses significantly predicted financing deals. This indicates, for the first time, that start-ups and investors lead progress in personalized medicine.

Companion diagnostics in oncology - current status and future aspects

A large number of targeted anticancer drugs are currently under development and most of them will have a companion diagnostic linked to their use. If a diagnostic assay is developed in conjunction with a targeted anticancer drug, such an assay will later end up determining the conditions for the use of the drug after its approval. The assay then becomes a kind of 'gatekeeper' in relation to which patients should be treated with the drug in question. This 'gatekeeper' role implies that companion diagnostic assays must live up to the same regulatory standards and requirements known from drug development. The assays must have proven to be analytically robust and reliable and to have demonstrated clinical utility before they are routinely used in the clinic. In the drug-diagnostic codevelopment model, several 'traditional' study designs have been used to demonstrate clinical utility. However, if we are to benefit from the increasing knowledge provided by molecular oncology, new ways should be developed to demonstrate the clinical utility of drug-diagnostic combinations. The development of such an approach will require a rethinking at different levels and is likely to include a number of ethical, regulatory and practical challenges.