NEW YORK – Foundation Medicine and Karyopharm Therapeutics said Tuesday they are collaborating on a companion diagnostic for Karyopharm's experimental drug Xpovio (selinexor), which is in development as a maintenance therapy for patients with advanced or recurrent TP53 wild-type endometrial cancer.
The partnership between the two Massachusetts-based firms will use Roche subsidiary Foundation's tissue-based FoundationOne CDx next-generation sequencing test to help identify patients with TP53 wild-type tumors so they can be enrolled into Karyopharm's Phase III clinical study on the use of Xpovio, an exportin 1 (XPO1) inhibitor, as a maintenance therapy following systemic therapy. The firms noted that endometrial cancer is the most common female reproductive cancer in the US, and about half of patients with advanced or recurrent disease have p53 wild-type tumors.
“Our deep understanding of cancer biology and global regulatory expertise, combined with their innovative approach to developing cancer therapies puts us in a strong position to help more patients living with this devastating condition," Foundation Medicine Chief Biopharma Business Officer Sanket Agrawal said in a statement.
The FoundationOne CDx test detects substitutions, insertions, deletions, and copy number alterations in 324 genes and select gene arrangements as well as genomic signatures including microsatellite instability and tumor mutational burden. Xpovio is a selective inhibitor of nuclear export compounds that bind to and inhibit the protein XPO1.