Biodesix, Checkmate collaborate on cancer-drug development

BOULDER —  Biodesix Inc. in Boulder and Massachusetts-based Checkmate Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Tuesday announced they will collaborate on a research project to determine which cancer patients might benefit from one of Checkmate’s drug candidates to treat melanoma.

Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

Checkmate is a clinical-stage biopharma developing therapies to treat cancer using immunotherapy, a treatment that uses a body’s immune system to help fight cancer. Checkmate will use Biodesix’s Diagnostic Cortex artificial intelligence-based biomarker discovery platform to further research on its drug CMP-001 that activates the immune system. When combined with pembrolizumab, it has the potential to improve the response rate of cancer patients with melanoma. Pembrolizumab is an antibody that blocks a protective mechanism of cancer cells, and allows the immune system to destroy those cancer cells. The serum-based diagnostic test could prove to be useful for identifying patients more likely to benefit from the combination therapy.

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“Immunotherapies have been shown to offer great clinical benefit for some patients,” David Brunel, Biodesix’s chief executive, said in a prepared statement. “Our biomarker development platform facilitates the development of new therapies by ensuring that before they come to market, characteristics of the patients who can benefit the most from them have already been identified.”

Biodesix develops blood tests in oncology to enable precision medicine. Biodesix’s blood tests include the GeneStrat and VeriStrat tests that deliver results within 72 hours. It also partners with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to develop companion diagnostics for use with therapeutic agents.