September 07, 2022
European Union-Funded Project to Result in Novel Treatment Approaches for Several Solid Tumor Types
Indivumed and CELLphenomics Announce Partnership for Improved Cancer Patient Care
Berlin/Hamburg, Germany (September, 07 2022) – Indivumed GmbH (“Indivumed”) and CELLphenomics GmbH (“CELLphenomics”) today announced a partnership to create a unique platform for faster and more efficient discovery and validation of therapeutic targets. The new platform combines Indivumed’s AI-driven oncology analytics with CELLphenomics’ expertise in creating organoid models to identify therapeutically relevant targets and validate these targets in-vitro. The partnership will accelerate cancer drug development by linking in-silico target discovery and development with matched patient-derived tumor models for downstream validation.
“Leveraging our multi-omics database and AI-driven oncology analytics is what allows us to decipher the complex mechanisms of cancer in order to drive the development of precision oncology,” said Prof. Dr. Hartmut Juhl, CEO and Founder of Indivumed. “By partnering with CELLphenomics, we will be able to quickly validate therapeutically relevant targets to identify new treatment approaches and accelerate cancer drug development in the future.”
The partnership announcement comes after Indivumed was awarded €4.3 million by the European Union Structural Fund ERDF to accelerate drug development and personalize treatments for cancer. CELLphenomics was selected by Indivumed as a partner due to the company’s technological capabilities and scientific expertise. Initially, the partnership will focus on cancer types with the greatest current medical need.
“Indivumed’s comprehensive database and advanced AI capabilities are critical for identifying therapeutically relevant targets,” said Dr. Christian Regenbrecht, CEO of CELLphenomics. “Combining these targets with CELLphenomics patient-derived models and in-vitro assays will enable reliable conclusions to be drawn about the treatability of the tumor and its functional causes of therapeutic success and failure.”
Based on the highly standardized cancer biospecimen collections through Indivumed’s Clinical Network, capturing the molecular reality of each patient’s disease is key to the project. Having generated the most comprehensive and deepest multi-omic dataset for cancer biology worldwide, Indivumed will leverage advanced analytical techniques to extract biological insights from this complex data. Indivumed’s analytical platform, nRavel®, will identify, characterize, and prioritize potential targets for the selected tumor types. The patient-based cellular models provided by CELLphenomics will now be derived from the same tumors. This means that the whole process – from tissue and data collection to identification and validation – will utilize the same data and tissue.
About CELLphenomics
CELLphenomics GmbH is a Berlin-based biotech company founded in 2014. Our core competence is the establishment and cultivation of patient-derived organoid cultures (PD3D®) from various tumor entities, and their application for research and high-throughput as well as personalized toxicity testing. Our PD3D®models robustly recapitulate the original tissue and we thrive on harvesting their potential to accelerate oncology drug development. Our proprietary precision medicine PD3D® platform offers high-throughput efficacy testing, drug combination screening, toxicity profiling, target validation, drug sensitivity correlation with clinical response, and biomarker identification.
About Indivumed
Driven by our mission to unveil the complex mechanisms of cancer and to advance precision oncology, Indivumed combines the world’s most comprehensive multi-omics data with extensive medical experience, bioinformatics expertise, and AI-integrated advanced analytics. Our global clinical network enables us to collect and analyze thousands of patient samples using a standardized approach to ensure biospecimen quality across three business units – IndivuServ, IndivuTest, and IndivuType. The unparalleled depth and quality of our data – coupled with our robust product and service offerings – gives us the ability to obtain novel insights and accelerate cancer research. For more information, visit www.indivumed.com.
Background of the Development Program
The REACT-EU crisis recovery fund was established as an instrument to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in connection with the EU’s ERDF and ESF structural funds. Funds from the REACT-EU crisis recovery fund are intended to help overcome the social repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and to support a green, digital, and sustainable recovery of the economy. The fund is endowed with a budget of 47.5 billion euros for 2021 and 2022, of which 2.4 billion euros are earmarked for Germany. The federal distribution plan for Germany allocates about 47 million euros from the REACT-EU funds for Hamburg. Two focus areas have been determined for the life science sector: fighting infectious diseases and pandemics, and digitization.
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