Beyond Genomics Inc and diaDexus Inc have entered into an agreement to apply Beyond Genomics' Systems Biology approach to diaDexus' cancer diagnostic and drug discovery research. The planned research program will seek to identify new biomarkers and drug targets useful for the diagnosis and treatment of colon, breast and ovarian cancer.

Under the terms of the agreement, diaDexus made an equity investment in Beyond Genomics and will provide research funding for the program. The agreement also provides for milestone and royalty payments on products resulting from the research. Additional financial and deal terms were not disclosed.

The research agreement calls for Beyond Genomics to analyze normal and cancerous samples using a combination of high-throughput, next-generation proteomic technologies to identify and characterize new cancer targets. diaDexus will provide certain genomic analyses related to these new targets. Beyond Genomics will also use proprietary pattern recognition, clustering and data mining software (BioSystematics) to integrate and analyze all relevant data to generate new insights into the mechanisms of these cancers, leading to new diagnostic and therapeutic product opportunities.

According to the National Cancer Institute, there are approximately 350,000 new cases of colon, breast and ovarian cancer annually in the U.S. It is estimated that over 100,000 deaths will be caused by these diseases in 2002.