Champions Oncology Participates in Pre-Clinical Studies to Identify Novel Therapy for Childhood Cancer

HACKENSACK, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / December 17, 2018 / Champions Oncology, Inc. CSBR, engaged in an end-to-end range of research and development technology solutions and services to improve the development and use of oncology drugs, today announced, in partnership with Drs. Narendra Bharathy and Charles Keller at the Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute (cc-TDI), the publication of in-vivo oncology pharmacology data presenting the effectiveness of the investigational drug entinostat in Patient Derived Xenograft (PDX) models of Pediatric Rhabdomyosarcoma.

The data, published in Science Signaling (http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/11/557/eaau7632.editor-summary) demonstrates the advantages of utilizing well-selected PDX models in pre-clinical drug development and helped confirm the earlier research performed by Drs. Bharathy and Keller at cc-TDI. As a result of this work, entinostat will be made available to children with this cancer in a national clinical trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02780804).

Rhabdomyosarcoma is an aggressive soft tissue tumor that originates from muscle tissue. Once the tumor has spread beyond the primary site, it is difficult to treat. The basic backbone chemotherapy treatment for rhabdomyosarcoma has not changed significantly in the last 4-5 decades.

Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (aRMS) is an aggressive subtype of this disease with event-free survival rates around 15% in patients with distant disease. Although the cancer can respond to initial chemotherapy, the clinical challenge is to find treatments that have the potential to overcome eventual resistance to traditional chemotherapies.

The team at cc-TDI established the effectiveness of entinostat in combination with chemotherapy in various studies and confirmed their findings by performing studies in multiple PDX models of the disease. The large, unique and clinically relevant PDX bank available at Champions Oncology was vital as part of this research. Champions Oncology develops such models as a result of its extensive clinical collaboration network, enabling access to rare and less well studied cancers. The available characterization data on these models, including both patient genomics and treatment histories, enabled the researchers to validate their earlier hypotheses.

Bruce Ruggeri, Chief Scientific Officer at Champions Oncology added, ''Champions Oncology is committed to building its considerable bank of specialized PDX models for rare human tumors, along with the corresponding genetic and molecular profiles of these tumors, in order to facilitate the discovery and development of therapeutic agents to treat these rare and often deadly cancers. In this regard, the mission of cc-TDI and their success in evaluating entinostat for aRMS are a significant advancement for these young patients, and have the potential of providing a clinical impact consistent with our own mission to provide specialized PDX tumor model platforms, affording greater certainty in the fight against cancer''

About Champions Oncology

Champions Oncology, Inc. is engaged in the development of advanced technology solutions and services to personalize the development and use of oncology drugs. The Company's technology platform is a novel approach to personalizing cancer care based upon the implantation of primary human tumors in immune deficient mice followed by propagation of the resulting engraftments, or Champions TumorGrafts, in a manner that preserves the biological characteristics of the original human tumor in order to determine the efficacy of a treatment regimen. The Company uses this technology in conjunction with related services to offer solutions for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies seeking personalized approaches to drug development that can lower the cost and increase the speed of developing new drugs. TumorGrafts are procured through agreements with a number of institutions in the U.S. and overseas as well as through Champions' Personalized Oncology Solutions business, in which results help guide the development of personalized treatment plans for individual patients. For more information visit Champions Oncology, Inc's website (www.championsoncology.com).

About cc-TDI

The Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute (cc-TDI, www.cc-tdi.org) is a unique non-profit organization focused on the ‘preclinical gap' in childhood cancer research. Our mission is to bridge scientific discovery and the initiation of clinical trials. Through our efforts, we will provide evidence-based testing for the selection of new drugs to be used in childhood cancer clinical trials, thus seeding pediatric Phase I and II trials. This concept was emphasized in the Institute of Medicine Report, Making Better Drugs for Children with Cancer in 2005. Our longstanding work with mouse models of brain tumors and sarcomas is the cornerstone for basic science & target discovery and our mission. The cc-TDI research team is led by Scientific Director Dr. Charles Keller who follows in the footsteps of his mentor, 2007 Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi. The cc-TDI laboratory is based on the premise of a non-profit multidisciplinary biotech and is thus located in between the Silicon Forest in Beaverton, OR (Intel Headquarters) and the Portland-area medical center. Our industrial-modern 4600 ft2 BSL wet lab facility is a former 70-year old paint factory remodeled by Nike as an off-site creative space - an ideal setting to spark innovation.

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SOURCE: Champions Oncology, Inc.