Molecular Response Launches TargetX™ Platform for Rapid Discovery and Validation of New Oncology Targets

Molecular Response announced today the launch of its TargetX platform for rapid discovery and validation of new oncology targets. The program provides partners with access to the world’s largest bank of living tumor specimens, matched genomic database, and in vivo/ex vivo patient derived tumor models for validation. The integrated platform enables investigators to do in days what used to take months.

Target discovery and validation in oncology has largely relied on molecular and functional studies performed in cell lines. Recent advances in genomics have now created large databases based on well-characterized tumor tissue, which has enabled direct investigation of patient tumors for novel targets. Following these discoveries, it is routine to perform functional studies in cell line-based systems; however, it is often challenging to find a relevant cell line model and if found, there are often numerous factors which confound biology when using historical cell lines for functional studies. The result can be a process which takes considerable time and does not readily translate to clinical relevance.

“TargetX is the largest scale genomic database matched to living patient-derived tumor models,” said Dr. Mohit Trikha, CSO of Triphase Accelerator and founder of Drug Design Corp. “We plan to access it for our drug pipeline development and biomarker identification; having everything in one place allows us to do in days what used to take months. Additionally, we can now work with living patient derived tumor samples rather than cultured cell lines”.

The platform relies on Molecular Response’s proprietary bank of more than 144,000 patient derived tumor cells, of which nearly 400 tumors have been genomically characterized and databased for target discovery studies. The database is growing, but currently features the following cancer indications: colon carcinoma, NSCLC, melanoma, ovarian carcinoma, prostate cancer and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Upon discovery of a novel target, tumors of interest are immediately implanted into mice to perform functional studies in direct patient derived models–either in vivo or ex vivo. Molecular Response currently has more than 60 such patient derived xenograft models established for in vivo studies.

“We continue to focus on the use of patient derived models, both in vivo and ex vivo, for advancing oncology drug development,” said Thomas Broudy, CSO of Molecular Response. “Everybody would like to perform studies in the patient derived tumor setting starting as early as possible, but without the resource to do so, it’s nearly impossible. TargetX now enables you to do that.”

Molecular Response will present results from the TargetX platform at the AACR meeting; the company has identified a novel kinase target for potential therapeutic development. They investigated prevalence of target overexpression across 7 cancer indications, and identified melanoma as a clinical indication of high interest. Growth characteristics from patient tumors featuring high kinase gene expression vs. low expression were examined to help characterize the role of this target in oncology disease progression. Functional studies in these patient derived models to further validate the novel kinase are ongoing, as is a small molecule and antibody-based therapeutic development program.