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 The collaborations include an agreement to buy Definiens, a private
company that has developed a way of unlocking information from
cancer tissue samples, for an initial $150 million, and two
alliances to test novel drug combinations.
Definiens, whose imaging and data analysis technology was developed
by Gerd Binnig, the 1986 Nobel Laureate in physics, will be folded
into AstraZeneca's biotech arm MedImmune.
Using so-called "biomarker" tests is an increasingly important part
of cancer medicine, where therapies are more and more being targeted
to match the genetic profile of different patients.
Separately, AstraZeneca has also struck collaborations with U.S.
firms Pharmacyclics and Johnson & Johnson to combine its drugs with
their medicine Imbruvica against cancer.
Exploring combination therapies is a central part of AstraZeneca's
oncology strategy and an area where the group believes its long
experience in cancer medicine may give it an edge over rivals.
The two new clinical trial partnerships also extend the focus of
AstraZeneca's drug combination work in the fast-growing -- and
highly promising -- field of immunotherapy, where AstraZeneca is
vying with competitors like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co and
Roche.
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While AstraZeneca already has a number of immunotherapy trials
underway in solid tumors, including lung cancer, the latest
collaborations extend that research into haematological, or blood,
cancers.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler and Paul Sandle; Editing by Neil
Maidment and William Hardy)
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