Guardant Health, Nuvalent team up on diagnostics for cancer drug trials

Guardant Health said Thursday it is adding Nuvalent to its roster of oncology partners through a multi-year collaboration centred on companion diagnostics for targeted cancer therapies.

The agreement puts Guardant's Infinity platform into another targeted oncology development programme – after similar work with Pfizer and Merck & Co. – as tissue and liquid biopsy testing becomes more closely tied to cancer drug development, trial enrolment and regulatory strategy.

The platform is meant to give drug developers more molecular detail as tumours evolve and develop resistance. Guardant's liquid biopsy tests analyse circulating tumour DNA from a blood draw, offering a less invasive way to collect tumour information than tissue biopsy and potentially allowing tumour changes to be monitored more frequently during development.

Nuvalent, which is focused on kinase-targeted cancer drugs, will use Guardant's tissue and liquid biopsy portfolio in parts of its global clinical development programme, though the companies did not specify which studies or drug candidates are covered.

The partners will assess whether Guardant's assays can be developed as companion diagnostics for Nuvalent's current investigational drugs, potentially supporting regulatory filings if the therapies advance. The companies plan to coordinate on commercial launches in major global markets if any of those drugs are approved.

The Nuvalent agreement follows a January collaboration with Merck involving Guardant's Infinity Smart platform for patient enrolment in cancer studies and companion diagnostics. That agreement also included plans for global commercialisation across the US, Asia-Pacific, UK and EU markets.

Meanwhile, Pfizer expanded its relationship with Guardant last year through a long-term agreement that made Guardant360 a preferred tool across the pharma's oncology trials and added Guardant Infinity, which brings epigenomic data into tumour profiling.