Indivumed announced its partnership with the world-renowned Wilmot Cancer Institute at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). Leveraging Indivumed's approach to standardized tissue and clinical data collection for patient-centric cancer R&D, this collaboration aims to accelerate the development of novel cancer therapeutics for patients with high medical need.
Indivumed's innovative platform builds on carefully collected and curated surgical tissue samples and comprehensive clinical data to drive patient-centric cancer research and drug development. URMC's invaluable role includes the collection and processing of high-quality biosamples and clinical patient data, adhering to Indivumed's rigorous standard operating procedures (SOPs). A key advantage is minimizing ischemia time to under ten minutes, ensuring sample integrity and quality.
Priority of the joint research efforts is the creation of well-characterized, patient-derived tumor models (PDTMs) from the very same samples. These cell models, including classical cell cultures, spheroids, and organoids, combined with data insights subsequently serve to advance and de-risk the process of identification, validation, ligand screening, and development of pharmaceutical molecular cancer targets.
Hartmut "Hucky" Land, PhD, Deputy Director of the Wilmot Cancer Institute, is looking forward to the collaboration: "We have worked with Indivumed successfully in the past and our familiarity with their tissue and multi-omics data approach will provide an excellent foundation. The new project will create greater opportunities to identify new therapeutics and biomarkers, uncover insights on the right target-patient match for clinical decision-making, and thus help advance cancer care."
The collaboration initially focuses on advanced stages of solid cancers with a high medical need, such as colorectal (CRC), pancreatic (PDAC), lung, and breast cancer, with the potential to expand to other cancer types in the future. Insights gained through this partnership will advance Indivumed's ongoing research initiatives and asset development, while offering participating clinicians valuable guidance to inform therapeutic decision-making.
"We are thrilled to deepen our collaboration with URMC, significantly enhancing our ability to identify novel cancer therapeutics in a truly patient-centered approach," says Hartmut Juhl, CEO and founder of Indivumed. "We will develop primary tumor models for the testing of novel compounds against targets which have been identified by our unique AI-powered data analytical capabilities to bring novel therapeutics to patients as fast and precisely as possible."
With this agreement, the University of Rochester Medical Center joins the Indivumed Global Clinical Network, which already includes a sizeable number of renowned hospitals and leading oncology institutes in North America, Europe and Asia. The collaboration builds on the success of previous collaborations with joint research efforts between the two parties, including a recent publication on the discovery of an alternative way to classify distinct types of colon cancer.
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