Why don’t other companies offer patients and clinicians personalized in vivo studies?

  • The science behind personalized in vivo studies may be too difficult. Developing orthotopic patient-derived xenograft (O-PDX) models is more labor-intensive, requires complex surgery, can be expensive and often requires imaging methods to monitor tumor growth.1
  • Major advancements in the understanding of the tumor microenvironment are recent phenomena. O-PDX models retain the principal histologic and genetic characteristics of their donor tumor and remain stable across passages.2 These models have been shown to be predictive of clinical outcomes.1
  • Not only until recently have researchers have been experimenting with improving orthotopic engraftment techniques.
  • Changing oncology workflows can be a hurdle, and oncologists are known to be incredibly busy.

In combination with several molecular profiling techniques, the Mouse Avatar and Co-clinical Trial concepts have the potential to revolutionize drug development and the healthcare process.3

1 Hidalgo M, Amant F, Biankin AV, Budinská E, Byrne AT, Caldas C, Clarke RB, de Jong S, Jonkers J, Mælandsmo GM, Roman-Roman S, Seoane J, Trusolino L, Villanueva A. Patient-Derived Xenograft Models: An Emerging Platform for Translational Cancer Research. Cancer Discov. 2014 Sep;4(9):998-1013.

2 Qiu W, Su GH. Development of Orthotopic Pancreatic Tumor Mouse Models. Mol Biol. 2013; 980: 215-223.

3 Malaney, P., Nicosia, S. V., & Davé, V. (2014). One Mouse, One Patient Paradigm: New Avatars of Personalized Cancer Therapy. Cancer Letters, 344(1), 1–12.