DRP successfully predicts effect of 4 Breast Cancer drugs for Personalized Medicine

Hoersholm, Denmark, January 24th, 2017 – Oncology Venture Sweden AB (OV:ST) today announced that its Drug Response Predictor DRP™ tool in-licensed from Medical Prognosis Institute (MPI) for drug development was studied by MPI as a tool for Personalized Medicine – Patient Response Prediction – PRP™. MPI’s vision is to develop a tool in the form of a report over drugs that are most likely to be effective for the individual cancer patient. As a part of the strategy for carrying out this vision a study was set up in collaboration with Breast Cancer Experts at Danish oncology departments. The database for hosting the clinical data on approximately 800 metastatic breast cancer patients was investigated for the PRPs ability to predict whether a patient would respond or not to anticancer treatments given during their disease.

Data for epirubicin, fulvestrant, anastrazole and exemestan demonstrated with statistical significant values that the PRP could predict whether the individual patients responded on the treatment with the mentioned drugs or not. As there is a high number of active anticancer agents for Breast Cancer and this approach has been very fruitful OV and MPI will continue to broaden the database and the data mining to increase the number of products where our technology can bring value to the choice of therapy.  

Epirubicin is cornerstone in the treatment of all types of metastatic breast cancer and fulvestrant, anastrazole and exemestan are fundamentals in the adjuvant and metastatic treatment of estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer patients. Numbers from 2008* show that 2/3 of newly diagnosed early stage Breast Cancer receives adjuvant chemo therapy and or adjuvant antihormone therapy indicating a huge marked potential for the MPI PRP. In the current study, metastatic breast cancer was the subject – but the products are used in the adjuvant setting as well.

The DRP analysis were performed on Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) biopsies from the time of the diagnosis of the patients. To our pleasant surprise, data was strong on the FFPE biopsies even though half of the material was more than 10 years old. This is highly valuable for MPI’s technology and business model as screening can be performed with the patients consent but without having call in the patient for a new puncture for a biopsy.

This successful study is very supportive for the DRP tool used in Oncology Venture for drug development as it builds on the same technology platform.

“The objective of the MPI study was to evaluate whether the PRP in practice could predict drug sensitivity to some of the most widely used drugs in the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer. Together with Danish breast cancer experts we found that the PRP with a strong statistical significance can tell whether a patient should be treated with epirubicin, fulvestrant, anastrazole and exemestan or not,” says Peter Buhl Jensen, M.D., CEO of Oncology Venture. “I believe that these data form the first breakthrough for MPIs technology as Personalized Medicine and that these data indicate a great potential and value for breast cancer patients. The aim is that patients should receive the best treatment every time – as they have no time to waste and should avoid any side effects related to drugs with no efficacy potential,” Buhl Jensen further comments.

About the Drug Response Predictor - DRP™ screening tool

Oncology Venture uses the MPI multi gene DRP™ to select those patients that by the gene signature in their cancer is found to have a high likelihood of response to the drug. The goal is to develop the drug for the right patients and by screening patients before treatment the response rate can be significantly increased.

This DRP™ method builds on the comparison of sensitive vs. resistant human cancer cell lines including genomic information from cell lines combined with clinical tumor biology and clinical correlates in a systems biology network. The DRP™ is based on messenger RNA from the patients biopsies.

The DRP™ platform i.e. the DRP™ and the PRP™ tools can be used in all cancer types, and is patented for more than 70 anti-cancer drugs in the US. The PRP™ is used by MPI for Personalized Medicine. The DRP™ is used in Oncology Venture for drug development.

* Adjuvant systemic therapy in early breast cancer: impact of guideline changes and clinicopathological factors associated with nonadherence at a nation-wide level. A. M. F. Verschoor et al.  Published online: 12 August 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

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This information is information that Oncology Venture Sweden AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, on 24th January 2017.

About Oncology Venture Sweden AB

Oncology Venture Sweden AB is engaged in the research and development of anti-cancer drugs via its wholly owned Danish subsidiary Oncology Venture ApS. Oncology Venture has a license to use Drug Response Prediction – DRP™ – in order to significantly increase the probability of success in clinical trials. DRP™ has proven its ability to provide a statistically significant prediction of clinical outcomes from drug treatment in cancer patients in 29 of the 37 clinical studies that were examined. The Company uses a model that alters the odds in comparison with traditional pharmaceutical development. Instead of treating all patients with a particular type of cancer, patients’ tumors genes are screened first and only those who are most likely to respond to the treatment will be treated. Via a more well-defined patient group, the risk and costs are reduced while the development process becomes more efficient.

The current product portfolio: LiPlaCis for Breast Cancer, Irofulven developed from a fungus for prostate cancer and APO010 – an immuno-oncology product for Multiple Myeloma.

Oncology Venture has spun out two companies in Special Purpose Vehicles: 2X Oncology Inc. a US based company focusing on Precision medicine for women’s cancers with a pipeline of three promising phase 2 product candidates and Danish OV-SPV 2 will test and potentially develop an oral phase 2 Tyrosine Kinase inhibitor.