EMD Serono, the biopharmaceutical business of Merck KGaA, has formed a three-year strategic collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, located in Houston, Texas, with the aim of advancing the development of investigational cancer therapies in four cancers: breast, colorectal, glioblastoma and leukemia.

EMD Serono will gain access to the adaptive patient-oriented longitudinal learning and optimization platform (APOLLO), which is MD Anderson’s research platform. The APOLLO standardizes the long-term collection of patients’ medical history and data derived from tissue samples in order to better understand the biology of cancer and accelerate research-driven patient care, according to MD Anderson. The collaboration will encompass both biomarker-focused preclinical research and clinical trials in specific tumor types aimed at identifying biomarkers of response and resistance and developing a better understanding of the disease biology.

Source: Merck KGaA