SEngine Precision Medicine and Gustave Roussy Announce Plan to Launch PARIS® Test in Europe

Villejuif, 05 october 2021

SEngine Precision Medicine and Gustave Roussy Announce Plan to Launch PARIS® Test in Europe

Prospective joint venture will accelerate precision medicine in Europe by harnessing innovations in high-throughput drug testing, 3D tumor cell culture, and AI analytics established at SEngine Precision Medicine to identify the best personalized therapeutic matches for patients

SEATTLE, Wash. and PARIS, France, October 5, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) SEngine Precision Medicine and the Institute Gustave Roussy, a leading comprehensive cancer center in Europe, today announced the execution of a term sheet toward the establishment of a joint venture based in Paris, France. The joint venture will aim to offer a next-generation diagnostic test, making it possible to predict a tumor's response to different treatments. This joint effort will accelerate the development of personalized medicine in Europe based on technologies developed by SEngine in the evaluation of drugs as well as Gustave Roussy's expertise in advancing 3D cell culture tumor models. The objective is to perform "organograms" to identify the best personalized therapeutic matches for patients.  

Since 2019, SEngine and Gustave Roussy have worked to demonstrate the feasibility of a cross-continental collaboration and will soon begin Phase I of a multi-site clinical trial, Organotreat, employing SEngine's PARIS® Test to guide treatment selection for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Later phases of the trial will include over 300 advanced colorectal and pancreatic cancer patients, two pathologies with large unmet medical need. The joint venture will leverage data from the Organotreat clinical trial to drive clinical validation and commercialization of the PARIS® Test throughout Europe.

"Joining SEngine's expertise to our large-scale clinical trial on patient tumor avatars is a unique opportunity to assess next-generation personalized medicine based on cellular approaches," said Fanny Jaulin, Ph.D., scientific coordinator for the Organotreat clinical trial and principal investigator of the Jaulin Lab within the Institute Gustave Roussy.

"Current precision medicine approaches to cancer care are carried out using DNA sequencing of an individual's cancer. This information comprises a unique mosaic of alterations, a language that is still in need of translation," said Carla Grandori, MD, Ph.D., co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SEngine Precision Medicine. "The PARIS® Test translates this genomic language through phenotypic drug testing culminating in an actionable report of ranked oncology drugs shown to improve patient outcomes."

"We are in a new era of Precision Oncology, and the Institute is the ideal partner to advance major innovations in the field," noted Ulrich Mueller, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer of SEngine Precision Medicine. "Together with their network of physicians and scientists, we hope to save lives while reducing the cost of cancer care by ruling out potentially unnecessary treatments and matching the right drugs to the right patients."

About PARIS® Test

The PARIS® Test is a next generation diagnostic test that predicts drug responses integrating knowledge of cancer genomics with drug sensitivity testing of patient-derived live cells combined with robotics and AI-driven computational tools. SEngine's CLIA certified PARIS® Test generates actionable drug sensitivity reports for patients and is applicable to all solid tumors including colon, breast, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancer. Cancer derived cells grown in 3D outside the body maintain the functionality of the original tumor as well as its genomic characteristics. For cancers where a treatment path is not clear, such as many metastatic and recurrent cancers, the PARIS® Test provides crucial information to treating physicians to match the right drug to the right patient.