Accelerate your Drug Development and Biomarker Discovery

Biomarker Discovery and Drug Development

The drug development process can be complicated, consisting of many highly involved stages. To avoid costly missteps, it is critical to have well-validated biomarkers that play a critical role in every stage of the drug development process—initial identification of candidate drug, translational research, clinical development, and reverse translational studies.

NanoString’s platforms facilitate efficient biomarker discovery and validation throughout all these stages. Whether your research requires bulk, single-cell or sub-cellular spatial analysis, our innovative technologies can accelerate your scientific discoveries in drug development.

Pharma and CRO Spatial Summit Series

Biomarker Testing Process Diagram

Accelerate and De-risk Biomarker Discovery and Drug Development

nCounter Pro Instruments

nCounter® Pro Analysis System

Up to 800-plex Pathway Based Gene Expression Tissues, FFPE, Biofluids

GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiler - Spatial Biology

GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiler

Morphological, spatial context for whole transcriptome and proteomics experiments from a single slide

CosMx SMI instrument

CosMx™ Spatial Molecular Imager

Single cell profiling of RNA and proteins with subcellular resolution

Biomarkers discovered in early stages of drug development must be biologically robust and verified as drug development advances. Mechanistic studies to verify biomarkers derived from high-plex experiments are needed for biomarker development success. Adequate collection, storage, and limited availability of samples often prevent biomarker execution plans in clinical development stage studies, severely reducing the speed at which biomarker development can progress. NanoString technologies generate robust exploratory biomarker data from limited and challenging sample types and can be utilized for sample analysis to advance drug development programs.

Biomarker Discovery Simplified

  • Access biomarker discovery solutions for every stage of drug development
  • Trust biomarker findings to de-risk drug development
  • Verify biomarkers using reliable and robust technologies
  • Get the most from your data using high-plex spatial solutions to accelerate drug development

5 Reasons to Use nCounter Pro for Drug Development

  1. Save time and resources–biological insights in less than 24 hours using a simple workflow
  2. Get exceptional robustness–verify biomarkers as drug development progresses
  3. Protect your data in a cybersecure and 21 CFR Part 11-compliant environment
  4. Get flexibility with off-the-shelf curated gene expression content and custom options to fit various areas of research
  5. Generate gene expression data from various and challenging sample types

Spatial biology uses in situ-based approaches to study cellular composition and function within the 2- or 3-dimensional context of a tissue. The architecture of tissue and cell:cell interactions in their native environment can be mapped using spatial biology. Analyzing RNA and protein expression from a single slide with spatial context enables researchers to view a positional map of cells and increases the understanding of tissue and cellular architecture and interaction.

A Spatial Solution for Every Biomarker Discovery Stage

Diagram illustrating drug development process

5 Reasons to Use Spatial Biology with GeoMx® DSP and CosMx™ SMI for Drug Development

  1. Use minimal tissue sample input (as little as a single tissue section), to perform high-plex spatial protein and gene expression profiling of distinct regions in tissue microenvironments to identify and validate biomarkers
  2. Generate usable data that is highly robust and reproducible, enabling novel discoveries
  3. Apply innovative solutions for protein and RNA biomarker discovery and development for exploratory biomarker applications in situ
  4. Generate spatially resolved multi-omic data from any sample type and across various species for biomarker discovery efforts across the full drug development continuum
  5. Get direct visualization and quantitation of relevant biomarkers

nCounter Pro Featured Applications

nCounter Pro Gene Expression Signatures
Cellular and Gene Therapy – Biomanufacturing
nCounter Pro Gene Expression Signatures

Democratized Access to Robust and Reliable Signature Development

Thousands of clinically relevant gene signatures have been described in the literature, but few have been developed into a standardized assay. Implementing microarrays, qPCR, and NGS has proved to be challenging due to errors introduced during steps like library prep, RT, and amplification.

nCounter® Pro technology solves these issues with:

  • Direct digital detection with minimal sample manipulation
  • A simple workflow, eliminating error introducing steps
  • Proven reproducibility across multiple runs, users, and sites

Develop your own gene signature or implement an existing one with Custom CodeSets or Elements Reagents.

Related Webinars:

Cellular and Gene Therapy – Biomanufacturing

Cellular and Gene Therapy – Biomanufacturing

Biomanufacturing, also known as bioproduction, utilizes biological systems to provide commercial or clinical trial materials for use in therapeutics. Many assay development challenges in biomanufacturing of cellular and gene therapies exist. Traditional in-process testing is typically done across various assay platforms with low reproducibility and robustness, complicated technical steps with a lot of hands-on time, and long turnaround times to results.

The nCounter Pro is a modernized and streamlined approach to assay development providing simple workflows and robust performance. Fit-for-purpose pre-built panels address essential characterization and provide a starting point for further cellular and gene therapy assay development. Many in-process and QC assays can be ported to the nCounter Pro streamlining various assay solutions under a single cybersecure, CFR Part 11 compliant system that meets biomanufacturing regulatory requirements.

GeoMx DSP and CosMx SMI are novel spatial translational tools for biomarker discovery for all areas and stages of cellular and gene therapy drug development including evaluating pre-clinical patient responses.

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Related Resources

Virtual Seminar Immuno-Oncology gene signature generation with the nCounter PanCancer IO360 Panel
Blog Post Spatial Transcriptomic Services: Azenta Life Sciences Paves the Way.
Poster Spatial transcriptomics identifies unique pharmacodynamic effects of checkpoint inhibitor treatment on the tumor microenvironment in NSCLC