Merck, Luminex collaborate to aid Alzheimer’s clinical trials

Hannah Blake

pharmaphorum

A new collaboration and license agreement has been signed between Merck and Luminex Corporation to develop a companion diagnostic device that will be evaluated to help screen patients for recruitment into Merck’s Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials.

The clinical trials are for Merck’s MK-8931, which is a novel oral beta amyloid precursor protein site cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor that is the pharma company’s lead investigational candidate for Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

“Evaluation of biomarkers that may provide an indicator of disease onset and enable earlier diagnosis is an important goal toward facilitating early intervention and potentially improving the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. We look forward to working with Luminex to advance our ongoing clinical development program for MK-8931.”

Darryle D. Schoepp, Ph.D., senior vice president, head of Neuroscience and Ophthalmology at Merck Research Laboratories.

Under terms of the agreement, Luminex will have the responsibility for development, regulatory submission and commercialsation of the companion diagnostic device, which will employ Luminex’s xMAP® Technology to measure concentrations of two candidate biomarkers (A?42 and t-tau) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The candidate device will be evaluated as a means to identify subjects with MCI who have a higher risk of developing AD to support patient selection for Merck’s therapeutic BACE inhibitor clinical program.