Caris aims to bridge gap between patients, precision trials with Pharmatech takeout

Caris' acquisition of Pharmatech, announced Wednesday, will allow the molecular profiling company to offer patients, physicians and drug developers an integrated approach to identifying and enrolling patients with rare mutations and other biomarkers in precision cancer trials.

One of the biggest challenges in developing tissue-agnostic drugs is identifying patients based on biomarkers and connecting them to trials. The ability to access clinical trials assessing new therapies based on molecular markers rather than tissue of origin is also a concern of patients, as expressed by advocates at a meeting Friday co-hosted by FDA, ASCO and Friends of Cancer Research (see "Patient Access Pitfalls, Regulatory Inconsistencies Hamper Agnostic Drugs")...