A Hyderabad-based firm entered an agreement in June to make its 13,000-biomarker database available to US researchers. Indian contract research organization GVK Biosciences signed a deal in June with Indianapolis-based Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI), and a similar pact was signed with the Biomarker Qualification Group of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April. The GVK Clinical Biomarker Database called GOBIOM “is probably the first comprehensive biomarker-oriented database,” says Lang Li, head of bioinformatics at CTSI. It is a repository of biochemical, genomic, imaging, metabolite, cellular, physiological and clinical scoring-scale information gathered from clinical trial reports, scientific conferences and public literature. The data include preclinical, exploratory and clinically evaluated compounds—but not validated biomarkers—for 16 different therapeutic areas across 528 indications. GVK Biosciences said its collaborations with the genomics group of the FDA “helped us in developing a tetrahedral data model linking the biomarker to the disease, drug and target,” as a discovery tool for basic scientists developing new compounds, as well as clinicians designing phase 0, 1 or 2 trials, he said. GOBIOM is available to CTSI investigators, and scientists at Indiana, Purdue and Notre Dame Universities and affiliated organizations. “We have plans to develop a series of clinically relevant biomarkers for personalized medicine as well as conducting new discoveries,” says Anantha Shekhar, director of the Indiana CTSI. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.