Agilent Technologies and GI Innovation to Collaborate on Cancer Immunotherapy Biomarker Study

Agilent Technologies has announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with GI Innovation (GII), a South Korean clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The agreement outlines a strategic partnership to investigate potential genomic biomarkers of the tumor microenvironment for the cancer immunotherapy GI-101.

The collaboration will focus on utilizing Agilent's genomic profiling technologies on tumor tissue samples within the GI-101-P101 study. This Phase 1/2 clinical trial assesses the safety, tolerability, and therapeutic activity of GI-101, both as a monotherapy and in combination with other treatments, including pembrolizumab and lenvatinib. The study involves 400 patients with advanced solid tumors.

"Biomarkers are playing an increasingly critical role in the development of new immuno-oncology drugs and are being incorporated earlier in the development pipeline," stated Su Youn Nam, CEO/CMO of GI Innovation. "We are excited to partner with Agilent, a global leader in diagnostics, to access their genomic profiling capabilities across various tumor types."

This partnership with GI Innovation aims to establish Agilent as a trusted clinical partner in Korea and promote comprehensive next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based biomarker profiling early in clinical trials. Agilent's NGS panel can analyze over 500 cancer-related genes in a single assay.