On February 16, Samsung Medical Center announced that it officially signed an agreement with Tgen, U.S. leading pharmaceutical company in initial clinical research and development of new drugs to jointly research genome-based personalized cancer treatment.
Tgen is a non-profit research institute which was established in June, 2002 in pursuit of early diagnosis and development of innovative treatment. Currently, it runs more than 20 clinical tests in the U.S., and acts as a go-between to make research results at the basic science level undergo clinical trials.
Tgen is also referred as Mecca of clinical trials with advanced technologies which has led development on various drugs like Paclitaxel for ovarian cancer and gemcitabine for pancreatic cancer.
This is the first time for Tgen to study together in a country other than the U.S.
Tgen will run Innovative Personalized Cancer Program (IPCP) for patients with metastatic stomach and lung cancers in cooperation with Samsung Medical Center for three years.
In case that Samsung Medical Center analyzes those patients’ genomes and their difference from other cancer patients, genome-based targeted agents from Tgen will be applied to the patients.
“The IPCP between Samsung Medical Center and Tgen is expected to lead innovative results of research on genome-based clinical trials,” said Jeffrey M. Trent, President of Tgen, “I hope that this will make great contribution to develop genome-based innovative personalized cancer treatment for many cancer patients around the world including Korea.”
“Samsung Medical Center has invested in cancer medical science research institute, genome laboratory, business for incurable cancers and clinical trial center. With the beginning of stomach and lung cancers, it extends its research on rare cancers as well as five representative cancers. By doing this, Samsung Medical Center will do its best to become a world-class medical center of genome-based personalized cancer treatment,” said Samsung Medical Center’s Chief doctor Song Jae-hun.
By Lee Jae-seung
