NEW YORK – Pangea Biomed on Wednesday said it is collaborating with Hadassah University Hospital Ein-Kerem and Ultima Genomics to improve the accuracy of solid tumor treatment predictions through genomic and transcriptomic profiling.
Under the partnership, with the hospital's Sharett Institute of Oncology and Hadassah Cancer Research Institute, nearly all solid tumor patients who have biopsies at Sharett will also receive comprehensive genomic profiling using the FoundationOne tissue-based companion diagnostic test to inform their therapy selection. Pangea, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, will also apply its AI-driven Expression Networks for highLIGHTing tumor vulnerabilities (ENLIGHT) platform to RNA sequencing data generated by Ultima Genomics from mRNA extracted from patient tumors. The company will analyze the transcriptome data along with digital pathology data. A report from ENLIGHT, combined with the clinical information and analysis from Jerusalem-based Hadassah, can be used to improve those treatment selections.
"By integrating comprehensive DNA, RNA, and imaging data, we are creating an unparalleled dataset that will not only benefit patients directly but also fuel numerous future research endeavors and clinical trials," Pangea CEO Tuvik Beker said in a statement.
The partners expect the multiyear project to generate ENLIGHT reports for more than 2,000 patients per year.
ENLIGHT uses in vitro, preclinical, and clinical datasets to build genetic interaction maps that can identify gene pairs with significance for tumor vulnerability. Pangea has used the platform to retrospectively predict patient response to therapy based on tumor transcriptomics data. In a study published last month in Nature Cancer, Pangea demonstrated that a two-step AI system combining ENLIGHT with DeepPT, a deep-learning framework for predicting mRNA expression from histopathology slides, could predict true responders to targeted treatments and immunotherapies.
In March 2023, Pangea partnered with Onconova Therapeutics to identify biomarkers of response to Onconova's cancer drug candidate rigosertib using ENLIGHT.