Champions Oncology, a company developing solutions to personalize oncology drugs, has presented two research studies during the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium that took place earlier this week in Barcelona, Spain.
During the presentations, the development of a state-of-the-art TumorGraft model, ImmunoGraft, was discussed. This particular platform can be adapted to immune-modulating therapeutics in particular with Champions’ TumorGraft, to guide clinical development strategies.
“There continues to be a need for improved models that enable researchers to better understand the clinical potential of therapeutics early in their development, ideally in the preclinical setting,” Keren Paz, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Champions Oncology, said in a press release. “The findings presented at EORTC-NCI-AACR continue to demonstrate the advantages of our TumorGraft platform and our ability to create personalized mouse models for the exciting new class of immuno-oncology therapeutics. We look forward to presenting future case studies with our ImmunoGrafts at additional conferences in the year ahead.”
Champion’s TumorGraft technology platform is an innovative method whereby primary human tumors are injected into immune compromised mice. The engraftments are then propagated in a way that preserves the original biological signatures if the original human cancer, determining the efficiency of a specific treatment regimen.
In their first study, “A humanized mouse model for preclinical testing of molecules targeting immune checkpoints,” mice that had a healthy immune system received TumorGraft technology, allowing a more physiological model to assess immune-modulating therapeutics. The result was a model called ImmunoGraft, which will allow a better understanding of the connections between the immune system and cancer cells, hopefully leading to the development of better drugs and improved drug targets.
The second presentation titled “Screening of Champions Predictive TumorGraft Platform Guides the Clinical Development of the Selective Dual BRAF-EGFR Inhibitor CEP-32496“, showed a case study developed in cooperation with Teva Pharmaceuticals, whereby both companies developed a dual BRAF-EGFR inhibitor, CEP-32496. Researchers used TumorGrafts to evaluate the efficiency of CEP-32496, either as monotherapy or in combination, and compared it against three approved therapies, demonstrating the efficacy of CEP-32496 in animal models of melanoma and colorectal cancer.
These promising results justify further investigation in appropriate clinical studies.
