Lilly invests $80M in UK biomedical and teams up with Qiagen
The biopharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, based in Indianapolis, announced yesterday that it is collaborating with Dutch company Qiagen’s development of modular assay panels that allow simultaneous study of multiple biomarkers under investigation by Lilly.
This comes on the heels of news that Lilly has made a sizeable investment in a $80 million Epidarex Capital fund for early-stage life science and health technology companies in the United Kingdom. The announcement came May 29 from Kings College London, another financial contributor in the fund.
“Lilly’s commitment to this pioneering Epidarex fund will increase collaboration across industry and academia to help speed the delivery of new treatments for unmet medical needs,” Elaine Sullivan, Lilly’s vice president of global external research and development, reportedly said. “This investment reflects Lilly’s strong belief in the excellence of life science research and development in the UK; and will complement our own [research and development] and existing academic partnerships to help make life better for patients around the world.”
The project with Qiagen, based in Venlo, The Netherlands, is for the purposes of rounding out the company's Modaplex platform including multiple assays in one panel to be used in Lilly DNA and RNA cancer biomarker research looking into promising new cellular pathways.
"We are excited to add a new stage to our successful collaboration with Lilly, this time co-developing a broad panel of molecular assays covering a range of biomarkers with diverse nucleic acid analytes and modalities to guide the use of tailored therapies,” said Peer M. Schatz, Qiagen’s chief executive officer. “We believe our technology can enhance Lilly's development of innovative therapies for the benefit of cancer patients. In addition to a broad portfolio of [polymerase chain reaction-based] assays targeting more than 25 biomarkers."
The collaboration with Lilly is rounding out a fourth project between the two companies, which has included Qiagen’s Therascreen kit now FDA approved and widely used as a companion diagnostic test for genetic mutations in colorectal cancer patients telling clinicians whether their patients would benefit from a cancer therapy developed by Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Other collaborations include a companion diagnostic test developed for genetic mutation in blood cancers and another diagnostic test for an undisclosed cancer therapy.
"Certain applications in biomarker development for tailoring oncology therapeutics require the combined analysis of DNA and RNA, and this collaboration provides a multi-modal, multi-analyte solution that can process multiple sample types and biomarkers in a single test,” reiterated Richard B. Gaynor, MD, senior vice president of oncology-clinical product development and medical affairs for Lilly. “We are pleased to work with Qiagen on this novel platform to support our development programs."