Under the latest agreement with Corgenix, the companies will collaborate to further advance Lilly’s proprietary diagnostic technology. Companion diagnostics are used to identify patients who may be more likely to benefit from an investigational drug based on genomic information, which could also boost the prices of these specifically targeted therapies. Financial terms of the Corgenix agreement were not disclosed.
“This is Corgenix’s initial foray into Companion Diagnostics, and the first phase went extremely well, and we are now into the second phase, which should run approximately six months,” Bill Critchfield, CFO and SVP Operations and Finance at Corgenix told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
In the last year, Lilly has announced at least three other agreements for developing companion diagnostics, including:
- A multi-year contract with PrimeraDx to support multiple clinical development programs announced in June 2012;
- An agreement with Dako announced in January focusing on Lilly’s oncology pipeline; and
- A collaboration agreement with Qiagen announced in February.
The influx of such agreements might be another sign of a growing trend among large pharmaceutical companies looking to more specifically target their developing drugs. Other contractors, such as Icon, Quintiles and Covance, are beginning to invest in companion diagnostics as well.
Lilly’s latest agreement with Corgenix, however, could spur the company to expand its contract service offers further and lead to other companion diagnostic agreements.
“We believe that the agreement with Lilly will fuel further companion diagnostic projects with other Pharma companies, both here and abroad,” Critchfield added. “Corgenix has over 20 years of experience in developing, manufacturing and marketing diagnostic products, and for a small company, is very highly regarded in this sector, especially as to the high quality of the products we manufacture.”
Corgenix may look to more developments in the future. “The Lilly collaboration in particular opens a new door for Corgenix as we continue to explore this technology in global clinical research as potential new technology to meet the needs of oncology clinicians worldwide,” said Douglass Simpson, President and CEO of Corgenix. Lilly declined to comment on the deal.