EMD Serono, the healthcare business of Merck KGaA, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, have entered a three-year strategic collaboration to advance the development of cancer therapies for breast, colorectal, glioblastoma cancers and leukemia.

EMD Serono will gain access to the Adaptive Patient-Oriented Longitudinal Learning and Optimization Platform (APOLLO) – MD Anderson’s research platform that standardizes the long-term collection of patients’ medical history and data from tissue samples to better understand the biology of cancer and accelerate research-driven patient care. The collaboration will focus on 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.

The collaboration will enhance EMD Serono’s future oncology/immuno-oncology pipeline, with a goal of multiple registrational studies in novel indications in the next two to three years. Data from APOLLO will be used to match compounds to select tumor types for further development and to design biomarker-driven preclinical and clinical studies at MD Anderson evaluating the potential therapeutic effect of the compounds.

APOLLO was developed by MD Anderson as part of its Moon Shots Program, an effort to reduce cancer deaths by more rapidly developing and implementing advances in prevention, early detection and treatment based on scientific discoveries.

“This collaboration illustrates our commitment to delivering meaningful value to patients by rapidly progressing our immuno-oncology pipeline, focusing on the identification of innovative biomarkers, together with our partner, the prestigious MD Anderson Cancer Center,” said Belén Garijo, chief executive officer and member of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
“Our goal when establishing the APOLLO research platform was to enable innovative solutions such as this collaboration between academia and industry to help accelerate clinical advances for the benefit of all cancer patients,” said Ronald DePinho, M.D., president, MD Anderson. “This joint effort supports our mission to end cancer by addressing some of the greatest challenges in oncology today.”