Last week, the NIH announced the establishment of the Partnership for Accelerating Cancer Therapies (PACT), a public-private partnership with 11 pharmaceutical companies as part of the cancer moonshot program. PACT is a five-year initiative focused on identifying, developing and validating cancer biomarkers to help advance immunotherapy treatments. By creating a database of biomarkers, a standard can be established, allowing companies to be able to compare drugs.

The companies participating in PACT are AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene Corporation, Genentech, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Pfizer. Each company will provide $1 million over the five-year period totaling $55 million, and the NIH will contribute $160 million in funding over the timespan.

Source: STAT