Akoya Biosciences and NeraCare Enter into an Exclusive Agreement to Enable Personalized Therapy Selection for Early-Stage Melanoma Patients
May 09 2024 - 8:00AM
Akoya Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKYA), The Spatial Biology
Company®, and NeraCare, a leading developer of laboratory tests for
the prognosis of melanoma patients, announced an exclusive
agreement today under which the parties will develop market
opportunities for combining Akoya’s PhenoImager HT platform and
NeraCare’s Immunoprint assay for patient stratification and therapy
selection in early-stage melanoma patients.
Melanoma is the leading cause of skin cancer-related deaths,
with over 235,000 new diagnoses globally every year. Recent
approvals of immune- and targeted therapies have greatly expanded
the available treatment options for adjuvant therapy. Nonetheless,
a significant number of early-stage melanoma patients remain at
high risk of relapse and mortality without access to such
therapies. As the majority of melanoma patients are diagnosed with
early stage disease, there is a critical unmet medical need to
identify those at-risk patients to potentially enable earlier
access to life-saving therapeutic agents.
“NeraCare’s Immunoprint assay has demonstrated robust clinical
performance in identifying early-stage melanoma patients at high
risk of relapse through multiple, independent, prospective and
retrospective clinical studies. The Immunoprint high-risk patient
group has a risk of relapse comparable to those patients in later
stages with approved adjuvant therapies. Therefore, the Immunoprint
high-risk patient group is ideally suited to potentially benefit
from these therapeutic options that would usually only be
administered in later stages. We believe Immunoprint is in a class
of its own in terms of the potential to positively impact patients’
lives,” said Daniel von Janowski, Co-Founder of NeraCare.
At this year's ASCO Annual Meeting, updated clinical data from
the MELARISK-001 study in stage IB/IIA will be presented.
"We are pleased to partner with Akoya Biosciences, a leader in
spatial biology. The PhenoImager HT platform, with its powerful
multiplex immunofluorescence capabilities, is an excellent match
for our Immunoprint assay. This combination enables precise and
efficient spatial phenotyping while using a minimal number of
tissue sections,” said Friedrich Ackermann, Co-Founder of
NeraCare."We are thrilled to partner with NeraCare in efforts to
bring this game changing test to market and drive better patient
care. Our collaboration is a testament to the power that spatial
multiplexing can bring beyond research and into the clinic,” said
Brian McKelligon, CEO of Akoya Biosciences. “Immunoprint has
demonstrated unparalleled clinical utility to identify high risk
patients, and our collaboration is a critical first step towards
helping to serve the unmet need to increase therapeutic
intervention for patients with this life-threatening disease."
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About Akoya Biosciences
As The Spatial Biology Company®, Akoya Biosciences’ mission is
to bring context to the world of biology and human health through
the power of spatial phenotyping. The company offers comprehensive
single-cell imaging solutions that allow researchers to phenotype
cells with spatial context and visualize how they organize and
interact to influence disease progression and response to therapy.
Akoya offers a full continuum of spatial phenotyping solutions to
serve the diverse needs of researchers across discovery,
translational and clinical research: PhenoCode™ Panels and
PhenoCycler®, PhenoImager® Fusion and PhenoImager HT Instruments.
To learn more about Akoya, visit www.akoyabio.com.
About NeraCare
NeraCare is a developer of laboratory tests for individualized
survival prediction of melanoma patients with offices in Frankfurt,
Germany and New York, USA. The current portfolio includes two
assays: (i) Immunoprint®, an immunohistochemistry-based assay which
identifies patients with early-stage melanoma who are at high-risk
of relapse and death and (ii) MelaGenix®, a gene-expression-based
assay which was used as an inclusion criterion in the NivoMela
trial. NivoMela is the first clinical trial in melanoma to select
patients for adjuvant treatment based on individualized risk for
relapse. To date, NeraCare has raised $20+ million in venture
capital financing.
Akoya Investor Contact:
Priyam ShahSr. Director, Investor RelationsAkoya
Biosciencesinvestors@akoyabio.com
Akoya Media Contact:
Christine QuernAkoya
Biosciences+1.617.650.8497media@akoyabio.com
NeraCare Contact:
Daniel von JanowskiNeraCare GmbH+49 69 273 159
503info@neracare.com
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