Morphotek has formed two agreements with Fox Chase Cancer Center to acquire clinical samples essential for the development and validation of companion diagnostic assays. The assays will be used in the identification of patients who will be suitable for treatment with targeted antibody therapeutics currently being developed by Morphotek.

“Fox Chase is a highly reputable organization with a well organized biorepository containing a bank of well annotated samples from a variety of cancer  types and the appropriate procedures and people in place to allow prospective studies and data management to take place," stated Dan O'Shannessy, Ph.D., director diagnostic development at Morphotek.  "We believe that with today's technology, the success or failure of a companion diagnostics program is governed by the quality of samples available for analysis.  The initiation of this project will be a significant step forward for our therapeutic development programs.”

Morphotek will provide funding for prospective and archival sample collection programs at Fox Chase to obtain samples from patients who are newly diagnosed with cancer or are being treated for a broad variety of tumor types.

Samples received from Fox Chase are being used in the development of companion diagnostic assays for Folate Receptor Alpha (FRA), the target of Morphotek’s lead therapeutic candidate, farletuzumb, which is currently being tested in several clinical trials against different types of cancers including non-small cell lung adenocarcinoma and ovarian carcinoma.