The Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Boston University unveiled a five-year collaboration to identify biomarkers for early stage lung cancer. The research includes a precancer genome atlas (PCGA) study, and the partners aim to find new therapeutic targets and develop interceptive products. The partners said terms are not disclosed.
Boston University Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Bioinformatics Avi Spira will direct a newly established J&J Innovation Lung Cancer Center located at the university. J&J hired Spira as global head of its lung cancer initiative.
Spira told BioCentury the collaboration's size and inclusion of translational work as part of its scope makes it unique.
The partnership centers on two projects comprising three longitudinal studies with a focus on non-small cell lung cancers -- the majority of cases in the U.S. and globally, Spira said. The PCGA study will enroll hundreds of patients with premalignancies of the lung to figure out the earliest molecular changes and identify new targets. The other two studies will characterize cohorts of more than a thousand military personnel to identify molecular and imaging-based early detection biomarkers.
Each project contains enough patients for both discovery and validation of biomarkers.
“We’re sampling the airway, lung tissues from them over time, and we can go back and enroll them into an interventional trial,” Spira said.
New biomarkers could include blood-based circulating tumor DNA or imaging-based strategies incorporating machine learning, according to Spira. Nasal epithelial gene expression has also emerged in military research as a potential biomarker unique to lung cancer, reflecting the "field of injury" in the respiratory track from inhaled carcinogens and suggesting epithelium changes occurring further down in the lungs.
While it is harder to identify premalignancy patients, Spira said, “we are planning to have the largest depository of pre-cancer patients in the world for lung.” The partners will receive specimens from about 10 U.S. and European medical centers specializing in premalignancies of the lung. In a 2016 study, Spira wrote a PCGA across tumor types would likely require more than 20 medical centers collecting and annotating specimens.
There is potential to develop pilot programs based on Boston University research and Spira said the partners expect to bring in more industry partners, especially those in the diagnostic space or biotechs to advance therapeutic targets. Ongoing discussions with government agencies and non-profit cancer foundations could lead to funding for additional studies around the two cohorts.
Boston University’s strengths lie in identifying early detection biomarkers for lung cancer, leading large cohort trials and genomics profiling, while J&J brings its translational and cross-sector capabilities, as well as global reach that will help expand the cohorts into Europe and Asia, “where we have to go because that is ground zero for the lung cancer epidemic,” Spira said.
J&J CSO Paul Stoffels, J&J Global Head of External Innovation Bill Hait, Boston University President Robert Brown and Spira unveiled the collaboration Wednesday at the BIO International Convention in Boston.
The Janssen Research & Development LLC unit of Johnson & Johnson launched its Disease Interception Accelerator in 2015 to incubate potential intervention strategies and forge scientific collaborations. Its first clinical trial for diabetes was announced in 2016 (see BioCentury, Aug. 22, 2016).