NEW YORK – Bayer Saudi Arabia, OncoDNA, and Tamkin Al-Seha Medical announced a partnership on Tuesday to increase access to NTRK biomarker testing in Saudi Arabia to identify cancer patients eligible for Bayer's TRK inhibitor larotrectinib (Vitrakvi).
The three entities will collaborate on an effort to test 1,000 patients with advanced, metastatic tumors characterized by NTRK fusions using OncoDNA's next-generation sequencing and immunohistochemistry biomarker tests. The tests will be administered by Tamkin Al-Seha Medical, the authorized distributor of OncoDNA tests in Saudi Arabia. Each patient's oncologist will have access to the results through OncoDNA's online platform OncoKDM.
Bayer recently launched its TRK inhibitor larotrectinib in Saudi Arabia for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with advanced solid tumors that harbor an NTRK fusion. Rearrangements in NTRK show up rarely across solid tumors but occur more frequently in certain uncommon tumor types, such as secretory breast cancers, and salivary gland and infantile fibrosarcoma.