	Ignyta, a precision oncology biotech, and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) announced they will collaborate via EORTC’s Screening Patients for Efficient Clinical Trial Access (SPECTA) biomarker screening initiative to identify patients into its global Phase II clinical study.

	SPECTA is a pan-European clinical trial site and cancer patient molecular screening network established by EORTC in collaboration with more than 30 leading cancer treatment centers in 11 European countries to provide efficient access for patients to molecularly driven clinical trials. Tissue samples from cancer patients being treated at SPECTA institutions throughout Europe are sent to the SPECTA program central laboratory. The collaboration will focus initially on SPECTA’s currently active programs to screen patients with colorectal cancer (SPECTAcolor) and lung cancer (SPECTAlung) and will expand to include additional tumor types in the future as additional SPECTA cohorts become activated.

	The collaboration will extend throughout the accrual phase of the STARTRK-2 study, which is evaluating entrectinib, Ignyta’s novel, orally available, selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor targeting tumors that harbor activating alterations to gene rearrangement to NTRK1, NTRK3, ROS1 or ALK.