UK-based diagnostics company Cizzle Biotechnology has entered a partnership with Florida, US-based Moffitt Cancer Center for the evaluation of its lung cancer biomarker assay, CIZ1B.

Moffitt will evaluate the ability of Cizzle’s biomarker assay to detect lung cancer early to reduce false positives and unnecessary interventions caused by computed tomography (CT) scans.

The collaboration forms part of a Phase II study programme by Moffitt, in which it is evaluating biomarkers for diagnosis, risk stratification of post-treatment recurrence and long-term survival of lung cancer.

Cizzle Biotechnology executive chairman Allan Syms commented: “Moffitt's reputation as one of the largest and most respected cancer centres in the US makes this partnership a significant milestone in advancing our CIZ1B biomarker test. For the first time, patients with suspicious lung nodules at a major cancer clinic will be evaluated using our test as part of their clinical assessment.”

In 2022, Cizzle entered a similar agreement with the International Co-Innovation Centre for Advanced Medical Technology for the use of CIZ1B in a clinical pilot study at Hong Kong’s Cancer Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Moffitt Cancer Center’s collaboration with Cizzle follows last month’s partnership with Detect-ION, in which the cancer centre will use Detect-ION’s ‘CLARION’ platform to assess the key biomarkers distinguishing lung cancer-positive patients from healthy controls.

Elsewhere in lung cancer, Illumina gained approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month for TruSight Oncology Comprehensive. The test was approved to identify adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic rearranged during transfection (RET) fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that may benefit from treatment with Lilly's RETEVMO (selpercatinib).

Additionally, research recently found that AI chest X-rays can detect the early symptoms of lung cancer up to three years before symptoms present themselves.