ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BioMarker Strategies today announced that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded the Company a Phase I/II Fast Track Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant to develop PathMAP® NSCLC, a pathway-based companion diagnostic test to facilitate the selection of optimal therapy for individual patients with non-small cell lung cancer. The two-year $2 million Phase II grant will begin after predetermined milestones are achieved under a 6-month $300,000 Phase I grant that is now underway.

“Targeted therapies now exist, including the EGFR inhibitor erlotinib, that can help patients with non-small cell lung cancer keep their cancer in check,” said Jerry Parrott, President and CEO of BioMarker Strategies. “The challenge is to determine which individual patients are most likely to benefit from which therapy or combination of therapies. PathMAP® is a pathway-based companion diagnostic assay that uses a patient’s live tumor cells to provide better information, including patient resistance to therapy, to support targeted therapy selection for individual patients with solid tumor cancers.”

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with an estimated 158,040 deaths in 2015. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is responsible for 83% of these deaths.

About BioMarker Strategies

BioMarker Strategies has developed SnapPath®, the only cancer diagnostics system that automates and standardizes functional ex vivo profiling of live solid tumor cells from fresh biopsies or other fresh, unfixed samples such as xenografts or tumorgrafts. SnapPath® can help guide cancer drug development and treatment selection. SnapPath® is unique in automating and standardizing functional profiling of live solid tumor cells from fresh, unfixed tissue samples – and enables the generation of PathMAP® Functional Signaling Profiles.

PathMAP® Functional Signaling Profiles, such as PathMAP® NSCLC, represent a new class of biomarker tests, which are based on the dynamic and predictive signaling information available only from live cells. They are useful in identifying and understanding mechanisms of acquired resistance, and they are highly predictive of individual tumor response to targeted therapies.

BioMarker Strategies was recently awarded the NCI Fast Track Phase I/II grant announced today, to support development of PathMAP® NSCLC as a companion diagnostic test to facilitate selection of optimal therapy for patients with non-small cell lung cancer. A Phase II NCI contract is also ongoing for development of PathMAP® Melanoma, a companion diagnostic test to facilitate selection of optimal therapy for melanoma patients. In January 2016, BioMarker Strategies announced that patents covering our core technology have been granted in the United States, Europe, Australia and Hong Kong, and are pending elsewhere. For more information about BioMarker Strategies, please see www.biomarkerstrategies.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this press release includes our projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. In some cases, forward-looking statements may be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “projects,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue”, etc. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or achievement and involve certain risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual future results and trends may differ materially from what is projected here.

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