Crown Bioscience launches HuScreen — a new high throughput service platform utilizing the largest available collection of PDX models

HuScreen will initially focus on popular indications such as colorectal, gastric, lung (small and non-small cell type), ovarian and breast cancer.

"Given the high cost of drug development and the low rate of success of compounds advancing in the clinic, preclinical oncology research needs to be refined, with the development of better assays and models," said Jean Pierre Wery, president of Crown Bioscience.

With HuPrime, the largest commercially available portfolio of well-characterized and annotated PDX, now approaching 3,000 models over more than 70 clinical indications, CrownBio offers a collection large enough to be representative of the histological and genetic diversity seen in the patient population in ongoing clinical trials.

"Cancer is a heterogeneous disease, in which one drug will not work for all patients," said Henry Li, vice president of Translational Oncology at CrownBio. "The identification of predictive biomarkers and genetic signatures in the patient population could greatly facilitate stratification in the clinic, and increase the chances of success for new agents."

To improve the predictive power and cost effectiveness of preclinical studies using PDX models, CrownBio has now developed HuScreen a high throughput screening platform to assess the antitumour efficacy of candidate compounds using large cohorts of PDX models.

Tens of compounds can be tested as single agents or combination therapies on hundreds of PDX models in each HuScreen to rapidly assess population responses across more than 70 indications. "HuScreen can replicate the multitude of clinical trial designs in a preclinical setting, which will enable clients to make informed decisions on lead candidates and patient selection while reducing costs and time to market," said Li.

Thanks to the high level of characterization of all HuPrime PDX models, with all model data available in HuBase — CrownBio's online freely searchable database — HuScreen will be able to identify lead candidates, genetic signatures predictive of response, establish mechanisms of drug resistance, or reposition candidates that failed during late stage trials.

HuScreen will initially focus on popular indications such as colorectal, gastric, lung (small and non-small cell type), ovarian, and breast cancer, to name only a few; however, it will soon be expanded to cover more cancer types.