CHUV, Alithea Genomics and PanGene partner to develop a pan-cancer blood test
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The three partners secured a €1 million ($1.1 million) in Eurostars grant funding to develop a first of a king pan-cancer blood test to guide immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy.
The consortium combines an expertise in clinical research, transcriptomics and kinomic profiling to take a radically new approach to identify a multi-omics biomarker profile that surpasses current single-biomarker approaches. PamGene has previously developed two CE-IVD tests for ICI therapy guidance, the IOpener® tests to guide ICI treatment of patients with advanced NSCLC and melanoma and plans to extend these studies to develop a pan-cancer predictive kinome profile for ICI therapy in the MAINLINE consortium. Together with Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Alithea Genomics will develop a transcriptomics biomarker panel using their proprietary time and cost-efficient Bulk RNA Barcoding sequencing (BRB-seq) platform. Lausanne University Hospital will provide access to whole-blood samples from ICI-eligible cancer patients to generate an extensive dataset for training and validating the prediction model. The individual kinome and transcriptomic profiles will be integrated along with clinical data to develop a novel multi-omics model, whose predictive power will be clinically validated in this project.
“The approval by the Swiss and Dutch funding agencies of our Eurostars project reflects the world-leading science and technologies we will use in our consortium to develop the first pan-cancer therapy agnostic ICI response prediction test” says Riccardo Dainese, CEO at Alithea Genomics.
Dr. Krisztian Homicsko, Lausanne University Hospital, Department of oncology, head of the Molecular Tumor Board, explains the expected clinical benefits of the consortium’s pursuit. “Our common objective is to deliver the MAINLINE IOpener-Dx 2.0, an IVD blood-test for predicting ICI efficacy and toxicity, based on a unique panel of biomarkers that are applicable for a broad range of cancers. The MAINLINE IVD will guide clinicians in patient selection to support the effective use of ICIs, thereby encouraging use of ICIs in earlier stages of cancer”.
Prof. Dr. John Groten, Managing Director of PamGene, affirms the consortium’s aims. “We are proud to apply our kinase activity profiling and IOpener® platform in the broader use of ICIs in early stages of cancer treatment by developing a pan-cancer predictive tool to support clinical decision-making for ICI therapy.”
Source: Press Release | Precision Oncology