NHS opens eight UK clinical trial sites to assess cancer patient response to immunotherapy in collaboration with OncoHost

OncoHost, global leader in host response profiling for improved personalized cancer therapy, today announced a collaboration with the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS), launching eight clinical trial sites in the UK. These trials will provide proteomic analysis for patients diagnosed with advanced stages of melanoma or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving immunotherapy, to help predict their response to treatment.

The sites will join and contribute to OncoHost’s ongoing PROPHETIC study, which utilizes the company’s host response profiling platform, PROphet^®.

“Immunotherapy has achieved excellent results in certain situations for several cancers, allowing patients to achieve longer control of their cancer with maintained quality of life and longer survival,” said Dr. David Farrugia, Consultant Medical Oncologist at NHS, and chief investigator of all eight NHS clinical trial sites. “However, success with immunotherapy is not guaranteed in every patient, so this PROPHETIC study is seeking to identify changes in proteins circulating in the blood which may help doctors to choose the best treatment for each patient. I am excited that Gloucestershire Oncology Centre and its research department have this opportunity to contribute to this growing field of research and I am determined that our centre will make a leading national contribution in patient recruitment.”

PROphet^® is a first-of-its-kind diagnostic platform that combines proteomic analysis with AI to predict patient response to immunotherapy and identify resistance associated processes, providing clinicians with potential combination strategies to overcome treatment resistance. The platform employs high-throughput protein analysis technology, scanning over 1,000 proteins in a patient’s plasma, combined with proprietary bioinformatic and machine learning-based algorithms to identify proteomic patterns that are predictive of patient outcome. PROphet^® also identifies potential drug targets, advancing the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Previous studies conducted in the US and Israel have shown that PROphet^® has high accuracy in predicting how patients with NSCLC and melanoma will respond to various therapies.

“In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that immunotherapy is not a “one-size-fits-all” solution. At OncoHost, we leverage cutting-edge proteomic and AI-based host response science, aiming to deliver on the most pressing issue in oncology today – resistance to cancer treatment,” said Dr. Ofer Sharon, CEO of OncoHost. “Our PROPHETIC study provides a more in-depth understanding of patients’ responsiveness to therapy and partnering with the NHS will give us a tremendous opportunity to expand our research, enhance our technology’s capabilities and increase our knowledge in the field to provide the ultimate solution for oncologists and physicians.”

This collaboration comes in advance of the upcoming launch of PROphet^® later this year. OncoHost continues to open additional clinical trial sites around the world and will be expanding its research to further cancer indications including ovarian cancer, head and neck cancers and urogenital cancers, with the aim of enabling early identification of non-responsiveness to cancer treatment and discovery of new targets to overcome treatment resistance.

Learn more about how OncoHost is using its host response profiling platform to predict responses to immunotherapy, in this video on The Scientists’ Channel >>

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