NEW YORK – Exai Bio and Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative (QLHC) are collaborating to expand the use of Exai's orphan noncoding RNA (oncRNA)-based liquid biopsy platform in the I-SPY 2 trial.
The study aims to investigate the potential for oncRNAs to predict clinical outcomes and measure treatment response among women with newly diagnosed, locally advanced breast cancer.
The decision to include a larger cohort in the study stems from positive initial data, presented at last year's San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, demonstrating that oncRNAs could be used to predict treatment response across multiple trial arms. It also suggested that the method could be used in early detection and cancer screening settings.
While healthy cells appear to express only a little oncRNA, cancer cells express them at higher levels and shed them into the bloodstream. Exai analyzes oncRNAs with artificial intelligence to identify cancer-specific patterns, including tissue of origin. The company’s platform does not rely on prior tumor sequencing nor on individualizing the test for each patient.
The Palo Alto, California-based firm also presented validation data on its liquid biopsy and computational platform at last year's American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.
Further details specific to the collaboration agreement between Exai and QLHC were not provided.
"We are delighted to extend our participation in such a groundbreaking trial and to continue to demonstrate that our RNA-based approach can more effectively inform care decisions in a larger cohort of patients and across multiple therapies," Pat Arensdorf, CEO of Exai, said in a statement.