Indivumed joins Blood Profiling Atlas in Cancer (Blood PAC)

Hamburg, Germany, January 10, 2017 – Indivumed GmbH, a global oncology research company with a unique global clinical network, bio repository and cancer data base will contribute research expertise and vital blood samples with associated clinical data to the Blood PAC, an initiative launched in response to Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative. The Blood PAC, a public private partnership of various leading oncology companies and academic institutions will enable development of an open database for liquid biopsies to potentially accelerate the development of safe and effective blood profiling technologies, advancing the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

“Attaining individualized cancer diagnosis and treatment for every patient based on reliable clinical data and molecularly intact bio specimens must be the goal,” said Hartmut Juhl, M.D., founder and CEO of Indivumed, and a cancer researcher. “A critical tool for achieving this goal is the establishment of a unique and accessible cancer data base, making freely available to researchers raw datasets from circulating tumor cells (CTC), circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), and exosome assays, as well as relevant clinical data and sample preparation and handling protocols.” Juhl went on to say “we are proud to be invited and delighted to contribute to this groundbreaking initiative, considering Indivumed has already contributed to the development of the liquid biopsy concept for tumor-DNA analysis and was one of the first companies to commercialize blood DNA testing by means of our subsidiary Inostics.”

Added Carolyn Compton, M.D., Ph.D., member of the Blood PAC and of the Pre-analytics for Precision Medicine Project Team of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and chair of Indivumed’s scientific advisory board, “We are facing a crisis of global proportion in the clinical and scientific community regarding reproducibility of biomedical research data, to which wide variability in the collection and utilization of biological samples for research contributes. Factors such as how a sample is collected and handled can affect both molecular composition and quality of a sample being studied.” Compton went on to say “Indivumed is a vital addition to the Blood PAC team, bringing in excess of fifteen (15) years of dedicated commitment to the development of scientifically guided collection and preservation protocols for the handling of biological samples in cancer research.”

The Blood PAC will allow approved researchers access to raw unprocessed datasets in a scalable and reproducible manner. The Blood PAC data storage and analytics team will work with PAC members and the research community to develop standards for data use, user authentication and authorization to ensure privacy and security, as well as data annotation and harmonization.

Blood PAC members include: AstraZeneca, Celgene, CytoLumina Technologies Corp., Eli Lilly and Company, Epic Sciences, Foundation Medicine, Genentech, Genomic Health, Guardant Health, Indivumed, MSKCC, Novartis, Omicia, Open Commons Consortium, Personal Genome Diagnostics, Pfizer, Provista Diagnostics, Seven Bridges, Sysmex Inostics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, University of Michigan, and University of Southern California.

For more information on how to contribute to Blood PAC, an open consortium, please visit www.bloodprofilingatlas.org.

About Indivumed GmbH

INDIVUMED an ISO certified global oncology research company based in Hamburg, Germany, has established the world’s leading Cancer Database and biobank, retaining unique patterns of biomolecules such as RNA, DNA, and proteins as they existed in the human body. This Cancer Database makes possible multi-omics capabilities that will allow for characterization of samples and data, such as whole genome gene expression analysis, expression analysis of cancer relevant proteins, expression analysis of cancer relevant phosphoproteins and bioinformatic solutions for integrating molecular, biological and clinical information.

INDIVUMED founded in 2010, in collaboration with Berg Vogelstein. M.D., Director of the Ludwig Center, Clayton Professor of Oncology and Pathology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute and investigator at The Johns Hopkins Medical School and Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Inostics GmbH, the first commercially viable company advancing the science of liquid biopsy in cancer research.

For more information, please visit www.indivumed.com

CONTACT:
Hartmut Juhl, MD
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Indivumed GmbH
+49-40-413383-0
press@indivumed.com

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