Groups Collaborate to Advance Personalized Medicine for Cancer Patients

Foundation Medicine and Sarah Cannon collaborate to advance personalized medicine for patients with cancer.

Foundation Medicine, Inc. and Sarah Cannon Research Institute announced a collaboration focused on advancing personalized medicine utilizing molecular information for patients across Sarah Cannon’s cancer programs in the United States. The organizations will gather results from Foundation Medicine’s full suite of comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) assays to personalize treatment options for patients and to ultimately support improved outcomes.

Sarah Cannon is a clinical research organization conducting community-based clinical trials across a global network. Researchers can use Foundation Medicine’s CGP assays, FoundationOne for use with solid tumors, FoundationOne Heme for use with hematologic malignancies and FoundationACT for use as a liquid biopsy, to identify eligible patients for participation in Sarah Cannon’s clinical studies.

Foundation Medicine’s CGP assays aid treating physicians and researchers to more effectively screen and match patients to early and late-phase clinical trials based on their genomic information. Sarah Cannon will also integrate Interactive Cancer Explorer, Foundation Medicine’s physician facing decision support portal, across its network to facilitate clinico-genomic knowledge among researchers and to enhance patient access to precision therapeutics.

Additionally, Sarah Cannon and Foundation Medicine have entered into a master research program agreement to collaborate on the development of research studies, as well as clinical programs designed to evaluate and establish the most appropriate use of Foundation Medicine’s assays into clinical care pathways.

“Clinical trials, particularly those where patients can be molecularly matched to a study, are an integral part of effectively treating many types of cancers and accelerating patient access to novel therapies,” said Howard A. “Skip” Burris, M.D., president, clinical operations and chief medical officer, Sarah Cannon.

Sarah Cannon and Foundation Medicine will also work together to develop training and educational programs that support the advancement of personalized medicine, including work with Sarah Cannon’s Nurse Navigator Program, a high-touch, personalized support program that enables nurses to comprehensively manage a patient’s experience with cancer.

“Precision medicine in cancer can be achieved by innovating new ideas that accelerate patient access to novel compounds in development,” said Steven Kafka, president and chief operating officer for Foundation Medicine. “Together with Sarah Cannon, we believe we are in a unique position to eliminate roadblocks to patient access, to integrate genomics knowledge into clinical pathways and to extend that knowledge across the cancer care continuum to accelerate research and drive better outcomes for all patients.”

(Source: Business Wire)