Crown Bioscience Announces Inaugural Symposium to Foster Greater Understanding of Predictive Models in Oncology

Crown Bioscience, Inc. has announced an inaugural symposium on the use of Patient-Derived Xenograft (PDX) models to accelerate Oncology drug discovery and the translation of novel candidates into the clinic. The symposium is to take place at the Museum of Science, Boston, MA, on Wednesday 10 September 2014.

The symposium will aim to foster a greater understanding of the crucial role of PDX in both the clinical and research communities, and demonstrate its effectiveness as a tool enabling improvements in both drug development and pre-clinical decision making. The industry’s increased focus on using PDX models in pre-clinical screening is due to the significant time and financial savings for drug developers and the ability to identify the most promising novel candidates and advance them through to the clinic.

Crown has invited a series of highly respected speakers from the local pharmaceutical and clinical research community who will deliver talks on clinical translation and study design. The programme will also include presentations from Henry Li, Vice President of Translational Oncology, Crown Bioscience, and Dr Rajendra Kumari, Chief Scientific Officer, PRECOS Ltd.

Dr Jean-Pierre Wery, President of Crown Bioscience, stated: “Crown is committed to facilitating development and improvement in translational oncology. The symposium is a chance for professionals from both the research and clinical communities to come together and pool their extensive knowledge and experience.“ He continued: “We hope that by working together as a community to increase understanding of pre-clinical screening technology, we can provide an improved service to assist drug developers in the global effort to extend cancer patients’ survival and improve the quality of their lives."

Henry Li, Vice President of Translational Oncology at Crown Bioscience, who will deliver a talk on mouse clinical trial using PDX as surrogate testing subjects for drug evaluation said: “Translational medicine is a key area of oncological research. We are witnessing a dramatic increase in the use of PDX as human surrogates and have seen the effectiveness of PDX modelling in screening novel drug treatments.”

The relevance of PDX models in drug discovery over recent years has increased dramatically. With rising costs and the constant evolution of both disease and treatment, pharmaceutical companies are experiencing a growing pressure to validate their candidates before entering clinical trials, in order to minimise losses on ineffective or unsafe therapeutics. Novel treatments developed to combat ever more complex disease sub-types require advanced screening platforms to yield accurate predictions of performance in the clinic. PDX models offer a cost-effective and efficient testing platform with which to make more informed decisions on candidates with complete confidence ensuring that only the most effective candidates reach the clinic.