Quintiles has expanded its offerings to include a comprehensive suite of biomarker assays to help biopharmaceutical companies investigate the phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K) cancer survival pathway, the focus of numerous anti-cancer therapies under development.

Understanding the PI3K pathway is essential in developing new medicines to inhibit or block this pathway, thereby cutting off a metabolic function needed for certain cancers to survive.

Quintiles Global Central Laboratories said it is the only central lab with a comprehensive set of tissue analysis tools, including proprietary assays focused on the PI3K pathway. Quintiles’ suite of PI3K assays can help researchers determine if the PI3K pathway has been “activated” in a particular cancer patient, indicating that an investigational therapy targeting the PI3K pathway may be appropriate for that patient. Quintiles’ PI3K biomarker solutions are also useful in exploratory studies to retrospectively determine a tumor’s PI3K molecular profile.

 "P13K is an important target for many biopharmaceutical companies,” said Sarah Bacus, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief scientific officer, Translational Medicine Oncology, Quintiles. “Understanding this pathway will help support the clinical development of targeted therapies to this pathway and advances in personalized medicine.”