“CTCA’s key strength is they have a lot of experience with treating patients and understanding the lifecycle of cancer and specifically various cancer indications and how patients respond to different drugs and at different stages in the lifecycle of the disease,” MacBeath adds. “Also, with their treatment aspect, they have a very well-developed network of patients and organizations to provide data that advances translational research. From Merrimack’s perspective, we bring a deep understanding of the biology behind cancer and quantitative models that predict how cells will respond depending on the status of the cell and the agent it is exposed to. We have five compounds in our pipeline, and soon to be six, that are in clinical trials along with the biological knowledge that led to the discovery of those drugs.”  

 

The parties note that in addition to diagnostic goals, the collaboration also encompasses clinical research.  

 

“We think that working with CTCA will be good for both parties, and especially in providing the material we need to help us develop companion diagnostics,” MacBeath says.  

 

In terms of the timing of the deal, he notes that Merrimack is at the stage where, in the last two years particularly, the clinical program has expanded quite dramatically with Phase II and Phase III trials, “and we’re looking for partnerships to help move the drugs along in development and develop companion diagnostics for them. Another strength of CTCA that attracted us to them was that they have an existing repository of patient biopsies and archived tumor samples as well as data on clinical responses of patients. That works for us not only in our current work but as something to learn from as we plan future clinical trials.”