Total amount up to €1 million awarded to consortium of leading cancer centers and innovative healthcare companies

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – 07:00 CET, December 22, 2020

Novigenix SA Switzerland, a pioneer in Immuno-Transcriptomics for precision medicine today announced that a consortium, including PamGene International BV and Radboud University (The Netherlands), has been awarded a grant up to €1 million to develop a blood based multi-omics test to predict response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer.  

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have become one of the main treatments for patients with metastatic cancer. Although ICIs are highly effective with durable results in some patients, only a minority respond and benefit from ICIs. Thus, there is a significant unmet medical need for accurate liquid biopsy solutions for selecting patients for ICI therapy.

The aim of the consortium is to develop a novel in vitro diagnostic (IVD) liquid biopsy test for accurate prediction of response to ICIs, leveraging a unique multi-omics approach of combining mRNA and kinase activity profiling. The biomarker development strategy is based on whole blood transcriptome and kinome profiling technologies. Moreover, the consortium will take advantage of the most advanced machine learning methods to develop and validate the AI based multi-omics signatures.

The members of consortium have recently generated preliminary promising data for predicting response to anti-PD1 in metastatic urothelial cancer (UC). Novigenix leverages its core competencies in Immuno-Transcriptomics and provides artificial intelligence solutions for development of multi-omic biomarkers and predictive algorithms. Pamgene will provide its unique expertise in Kinome technology, and the group of Dr. Niven Mehra, Department of Medical Oncology at Radboud University, will lead a clinical network for prospective collection of biological specimens and data interpretation.

“This Eurostars project combines excellent, world-leading science and technologies in a consortium dedicated to developing the first high performance multi-modal liquid biopsy test for the prediction of anti-PD1 response in UC patients,” said Dr. Brian Hashemi, Executive Chairman of Novigenix. “The high Eurostars review score placed the project in the top 5% of its peers, and we believe its completion can significantly improve personalized ICI therapy for better patient outcomes and health economics.”

About Eurostars

Eurostars supports international innovative projects led by R&D-performing SMEs. Eurostars supports the development of rapidly marketable innovative products, processes and services that help improve the daily lives of people around the world. Eurostars is a joint program between EUREKA and the European Commission, co-funded from the national budgets of 36 Eurostars Participating States and Partner Countries and by the European Union through Horizon 2020. For more information visit https://www.eurostars-eureka.eu/

About Novigenix

Novigenix is committed to providing a new understanding of the human host response against cancer and its response to therapy. The Company was founded on the vision that Immuno-Transcriptomics will bring unprecedented advances in diagnosing and treating cancer patients, leading to significant improvement in healthcare. Novigenix’s unique Immuno-Transcriptomics technology platform enables an accelerated identification of disease specific mRNA signatures of immune cells, which combined with machine learning and predictive algorithms provides new insights into onset and progression of disease.

For more information visit www.novigenix.com.

About PamGene International BV

https://pamgene.com/

About Department of Medical Oncology, Radboud University

https://www.radboudumc.nl/afdelingen/medische-oncologie

For more information:

Novigenix Leidar
Dr. Brian Hashemi Edwin Shankar
+41788098544 +4741523012
info@novigenix.com Edwin.shankar@leidar.com