August 24, 2020 |August was full of exciting news in the clinical trial and healthcare community, including partnerships, products, and promotions from Caris, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and more.

Caris announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Elevation Oncology to enhance patient enrollment practices for genomically-driven, tumor-agnostic clinical trials. Using Caris’ suite of market-leading molecular profiling offerings, the Caris Pharmatech Just-In-Time (JIT) clinical trial solutions, and the Caris Precision Oncology Alliance (POA) network, the companies will improve traditional enrollment in Elevation Oncology’s registration-directed Phase 2 CRESTONE trial through the real-time, nationwide identification of eligible patients with neuregulin-1 (NRG1) fusion-positive tumors and use of flexible enrollment models for rapid initiation of study treatment. “We are pleased to partner with Elevation Oncology and look forward to working with them to enhance their clinical trial recruitment efforts, with the ultimate goal of reducing the disease burden on NRG1 fusion-positive patients across a range of solid tumors,” said David Spetzler, President and Chief Scientific Officer, in a press release. “The future of cancer treatment depends on today’s clinical trials, and we are excited to use our industry-leading suite of precision medicine technologies to address the challenges typically encountered in genomically-driven, tumor-agnostic trials.” Under the terms of the agreement, Caris will help Elevation Oncology identify patients with advanced solid tumors that harbor the NRG1 fusions for participation in Elevation Oncology’s CRESTONE trial. Eligible patients will be confirmed for participation in Elevation Oncology’s Phase 2 CRESTONE trial of seribantumab in adult patients with recurrent, locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors that harbor the NRG1 gene fusion. Press release

Thermo Fisher Scientific announced it is facilitating access to cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) by directing pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to contract research organizations (CROs) around the globe that offer start-up packages for this breakthrough technology as a service. Cryo-EM is changing the game in structural biology by uncovering near-atomic level structures of biologically important proteins that are often key to developing more effective and targeted drugs. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies require proof that the technique works on their specific drug design projects before investing in their own instrument. This new program provides participants with information that can lead to the validation they require before committing to an in-house lab or entering into a longer-term CRO service contract. By obtaining proof of concept for their samples, customers can discover the value of cryo-EM for their specific use cases. “As the cost of drug development dramatically rises, cryo-EM is poised to help companies bring safer and more effective drugs to market faster and more affordably,” said Trisha Rice, vice president and general manager of life sciences at Thermo Fisher, in a press release. “This new program breaks down the barriers to adoption by providing information to pharmaceutical and biotech companies so they can discover the impactful value of cryo-EM before they enter into a long-term commitment.” Press release

Medidata has announced that SHYFT Analytics will officially be adopting the Acorn AI, by Medidata brand. The commercial and data analytics technologies and services valued by SHYFT customers will be operating as the Commercial Data Solutions (CDS) team at Acorn AI. SHYFT Analytics was acquired by Medidata in 2018. Press release

PPD announced it has signed a new three-year agreement with Pfizer to provide drug development services to advance Pfizer’s portfolio. Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer has the right to extend the term for additional two-year periods. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed. The agreement builds on the companies’ existing relationship, in which PPD provides wide-ranging expertise in global clinical development and laboratory services to support Pfizer’s drug development initiatives across multiple therapeutic areas. Press release

To protect Patient Network Explorer user accounts from breach, Clinerion is activating a second verification step during the sign-in process. In addition to the password, Patient Network Explorer now includes an authorization step that will run via the “Clinerion PNEx Authenticator” smartphone app. In this new step when logging in to a Patient Network Explorer account, the app will prompt the user to confirm their identity using their smartphone’s own authentication system, e.g., PIN code, fingerprint, or facial recognition. “As a data services company, we know more than anyone else the importance of keeping user account data safe,” says Andreas Walter, Chief Technology Officer of Clinerion, in a press release. “We are committed to defending the security of our users and protecting their account data.” Press release

Franciscan Health Cancer Center, in collaboration with Deep Lens, is moving forward with an initiative to rapidly and effectively match patients to precision therapies and clinical studies with an artificial intelligence-based screening and enrollment platform, VIPER. With the upcoming integration of VIPER to the Franciscan Health system, clinical trial care teams will be able to immediately and automatically match patients based on the genetic profile of their cancers to the best precision therapies and oncology clinical trials. “By partnering with Deep Lens we can better provide our patients with personalized, targeted treatments by genetically matching their cancers to cutting-edge treatments in clinical trials,” said Taylor M. Ortiz, Medical Director of Clinical Research at the Franciscan Health Cancer Center Indianapolis, in a press release. “The VIPER platform can help accelerate the matching of patients to fit in the narrow window of opportunity so they may access personalized clinical trials.” Clinical trial recruitment remains challenging with low participation and enrollment due to limited time and resources for physicians and care teams. More than 15,000 oncology clinical trials are actively recruiting patients; yet estimates put the rate of participation as low as three percent of potential trial candidates. “Identifying cancer patients who could benefit from a clinical trial is a time-consuming manual process today with hundreds of documents leading to inconsistencies in the screening, thereby leading to missed opportunities,” Kathy Kioussopoulos, research director of the Franciscan Alliance Research Administration, said in an official statement. “After an extensive due diligence process of searching for the best fit, we selected Deep Lens to help us solve this problem and streamline our identification and screening process to help our patients access the best clinical trials for them.” Press release