Oncimmune Holdings (ONC ) has signed a further commercial contract to profile over 350 patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria (“CIU”) - a disease which has no discernable external cause - to develop biomarkers to characterise disease and stratify patients for therapy.
Idiopathic urticaria is a medical term for patients who experience hives that seem to have no direct cause, whereas chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) is when the hives have no known cause and last for six weeks or more. It is also called chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU).
Today, Oncimmune, a global immunodiagnostics company, announced that it has signed a further commercial contract under its existing master services agreement (“MSA”) with an unnamed but ‘top five’ global pharmaceutical company announced back in December 2021.
In December, ImmunoINSIGHTS signed an MSA with the same pharmaceutical firm, under which an initial commercial contract was signed to provide autoantibody biomarker services.
Profiling prior to and after treatment will allow assessment of whether these biomarkers can better characterise the disease, and in turn lead to the stratification of patients for response to therapy, the company explained to investors.
Oncimmune added that the study will also uncover insights in order to support the clinical development of a therapeutic for CIU.
Under the terms of this latest contract, Oncimmune’s ImmunoINSIGHTS service business will profile the Immunoglobulin G (“IgG”) autoantibodies present in over 350 patients with CIU.
The ImmunoINSIGHTS business works with life science organisations to optimise drug development and delivery to effectively target and deliver safer treatments for patients.
Oncimmune will customise its existing SeroTag autoimmune disease discovery array to add specific antigens related to CIU. If successful, a panel of the best performing autoantibodies will be validated on samples from additional trials performed by its client, it told investors.
The company also informed investors that the previously announced project for this client to measure Immunoglobulin E (“IgE”) autoantibodies is progressing to plan and on schedule.
Once finalised, the samples from this IgG study will also be profiled for IgE autoantibodies, which will in turn contribute to our knowledge of autoantibody profiles in CIU, it explained.
Meanwhile, Oncimmune said the second agreement with this global pharmaceutical partner, ‘further validates the value of its autoantibody biomarker profiling technology in supporting pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in their clinical development programmes.’
Additionally, Oncimmune has recently established an office at the Cambridge Innovation Center (“CIC”) at Kendall Square in Boston, United States which will be the new base for its Chief Business Officer, Cameron Barnard, and enables the ImmunoINSIGHTS commercial team to operate in closer proximity to many of its North American pharma clients, it noted.
Commenting this morning, Dr Adam M Hill, CEO of Oncimmune said: “We are delighted to announce this second, follow-on, contract with a leading global pharmaceutical group. This contract, along with others previously announced and other unannounced contracts, further demonstrates the growing commercial momentum behind our ImmunoINSIGHTS platform.”
Hill explained that the establishment of an office at the Cambridge Innovation Centre “will facilitate more efficient business development interactions for our North American clients.”
Oncimmune will announce its interim results for the period to 30 November 2021 this month.
Follow News & Updates from Oncimmune Holdings: