Amgen reports that it collaborate with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and other public and private sector partners on the Lung Master Protocol (Lung-MAP), a new clinical trial program that will use biomarker-driven research and genomic profiling to match squamous cell lung cancer patients to investigational treatments based on their individual cancer profiles. Lung-MAP is being conducted in collaboration with the NCI, SWOG Cancer Research, Friends of Cancer Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), five pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, Genentech, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and MedImmune, AstraZeneca’s global biologics R&D arm), and Foundation Medicine.

Lung-MAP is the first trial of its kind to study a large number of rare lung cancer subsets under one trial protocol. Approximately 500 to 1,000 patients will be screened each year for more than 200 cancer-related genes, and the screenings will inform trial arm selection. Five investigational drugs have been selected for inclusion in the initial trial, including Amgen’s rilotumumab, an investigational fully human monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit cancer cell growth and migration. In addition to the Lung-MAP clinical trial program, the compound is also currently undergoing Phase III evaluation in advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer

Source: Amgen