Abstract
Covance Drug Development has opened a dedicated companion diagnostics laboratory in Morrisville, NC, that is designed to capitalize on the combined strength of Covance’s drug development expertise and parent LabCorp’s commercialization capabilities.
“We’ve opened this dedicated companion diagnostics laboratory to help clients develop and commercialize therapies based on precision medicine,” said Sue Maynard, VP corporate communications for LabCorp. “This is a milestone in the Covance and LabCorp commitment to this area, part of the company’s end-to-end capability for parallel development of clients’ targeted therapies and companion diagnostics.”
The Morrisville facility is 37,000 square feet, of which 60% consists of lab space. Twenty-five people are based at the laboratory, which will be used primarily for the development and optimization of new companion diagnostic tests for Covance-developed therapies.
Covance’s therapeutic areas include oncology and immuno-oncology, CNS, infectious disease and inflammation.
“The facility employs a wide range of technologies used to evaluate diagnostic markets. These technologies include, but are not limited to, anatomical pathology, as well as molecular and soluble-based marker analysis,” Maynard said.
The new lab has a focus on oncology immunotherapy, but not exclusively: “Other areas of activity have included therapies for non-small cell lung cancer, colon cancer and certain types of breast cancer, and their companion diagnostics. This experience puts the company squarely at the forefront of precision medicine,” Maynard said.
Covance and LabCorp Diagnostics have worked to develop drugs and their companion diagnostics for more than 20 years—including about 75% percent of companion diagnostics available today. Last year, the company participated in more than 60 companion diagnostic programs supporting 145 clinical protocols, Maynard said.
The new laboratory is part of a multi-use facility that includes a genomics and molecular pathology laboratory to support clinical trials and diagnostic assay development, as well as manufacturing facilities for diagnostics materials and testing components. The site also includes a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) lab that houses the first NMR spectrometer approved by the FDA to identify and quantify concentrations of lipoproteins and small molecule metabolites.
Covance was acquired by LabCorp for approximately $6.2 billion in a deal completed in February 2015.