Clarient Joins the HistoRx® Clinical Trials Network: First Commercial Lab to Provide Aqua® Technology for Clinical Trials

BRANFORD, Conn., Oct. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarient, a GE Healthcare company, and HistoRx® , Inc., have signed a definitive agreement to provide pharma services using AQUA® technology to their growing lists of pharma clients.  By implementing HistoRx's AQUA technology in Clarient's CLIA laboratory, the two companies will apply their complementary capabilities to serve pharma companies' growing need for biomarker analysis in clinical trials. Use of tissue biomarkers to characterize a patient's tumor is becoming a crucial element of personalized cancer care.  AQUA technology is an automated, quantitative IHC testing method that enables standardized precision measurement of protein biomarkers in tissue as an aid to a pathologist's diagnosis.

"HistoRx has helped numerous pharma clients with key development-phase decisions in the preclinical and translational medicine areas, harnessing the power of protein biomarkers to advance drug development," said Dick Carroll, Ph.D., Vice President of Clinical Research. "Now that AQUA technology is sought by drug developers for clinical trial support, raising the prospect of launching companion diagnostics based on these studies, expanding the network to include a commercial lab like Clarient gives more choices to study sponsors."

AQUA technology is increasingly used for high-precision evaluation of tissue biomarkers to formulate and test clinical hypotheses, particularly those centered on providing robust patient selection criteria for a given therapeutic in clinical trials.  The HistoRx Clinical Trials Network (HCTN) was initiated in response to significant interest from clinical research sponsors to have AQUA technology services available in a CLIA lab setting; HCTN members are the only sites approved and certified to perform AQUA analysis supporting clinical trials.  For the past five years pharmaceutical companies and oncology cooperative groups, and the researchers and clinicians involved in drug discovery, preclinical research and clinical development at those institutions, have used HistoRx Pharma Services to generate crucial information about their drug candidates, the metabolic pathways they affect, and the patient subgroups most likely to benefit from them.  The insights generated through AQUA technology and HistoRx Pharma Services provide compelling results with clear value in clinical programs, enabling pharmaceutical and biotech companies to use them for prospective analysis of patients in late-stage trials.  The HCTN, though centered on AQUA technology, has expanded its menu of offerings to include additional analysis technologies for use in clinical trials.

About HistoRx, Inc.

HistoRx, Inc. is a leading developer of tissue-based diagnostic solutions to advance individualized patient care and is the leader in quantitative immunohistochemistry.  The company's products and services are based on proprietary analysis of tissue biomarkers using AQUA technology.  AQUA technology is the only platform capable of precisely measuring protein biomarker concentration with sub-cellular resolution in tissue sections, enabling fully objective, standardized, reproducible, and automated analysis to guide drug development and therapeutic decision-making.  HistoRx is commercializing a pipeline of proprietary diagnostic products targeting improved treatment decision making and patient outcomes in cancer care.  For more information, please visit www.historx.com.

SOURCE HistoRx, Inc.