Life Technologies Corporation, a global biotechnology company, has entered into a Master Development Agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company for current and future companion diagnostics projects. The current agreement constitutes the second collaboration between the two companies and represents another step in Life Technologies' strategy to develop its diagnostic business through internal development, partnerships and select acquisitions.  

The agreement covers an initial project for oncology and provides for a long-term partnership across a potentially broad range of Life instrument platforms and a wide range of therapeutic areas.

"The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly turning its focus to discovering and delivering targeted, personalized medications," said Ronnie Andrews, president of medical sciences at Life Technologies. "As more and more targeted drugs come onto the market in the next decade, there will be a growing need for diagnostics that can help predict which patients will benefit from which drugs.

"For oncology alone, hundreds of agents are currently in clinical trials," said Andrews, "and we see strong market opportunity in the robust expansion this will mean for the companion diagnostics space."

Life Technologies possesses a breadth of platforms that can be leveraged in the development of new diagnostics. These platforms span both genetic and proteomic analysis, including next-generation sequencing, Sanger sequencing, qPCR, flow cytometry and immuno-histochemistry. In addition, the company recently announced that its Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM) would be developed for proteomics capabilities.

"Life is uniquely positioned to provide pharma a flexible, cost effective means to manage the evolution of the companion diagnostic assay through the drug development process," said Andrews.