SEngine Precision Medicine demonstrates potential of PARIS® Test to find unexpected therapeutic options for treating cancer

SEngine Precision Medicine, the precision oncology innovator matching patients to medicines based on their own tumor samples, announces the publication of a new case report showing a patient’s remarkable response to an off-label therapy identified by its PARIS® Test. Despite standard-of-care chemotherapy and two surgeries, the patient’s low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC) was progressing and her prognosis was terminal. But by testing a range of therapies in organoids grown from the patient’s own tumor sample, SEngine’s PARIS® Test identified as a top candidate ibrutinib, a BTK inhibitor approved only for certain leukemias and lymphomas and with no prior clinical evidence of efficacy in ovarian cancer. Ibrutinib monotherapy led to cessation of opioid-based pain management, the patient’s exit from hospice care, and 15 months of stable disease.

The PARIS® Test, a unique Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-certified drug sensitivity assay, consists of 3D organoids derived from a patient’s tumor. Because no two cancers are identical, SEngine screens an array of drugs from a library of 240 small molecule drugs in the organoids, and develops a personalized report that scores therapies to maximize efficacy and minimize toxicity.

The patient has since continued treatment with two additional PARIS® Test-prioritized therapies that are approved only for certain lung cancers. In total, her personalized treatment course has led to over two years of stable disease, compared with a median progression-free survival of 7.2 months for patients with recurrent LGSOC^[1]. The paper was published Thursday in npj Precision Oncology, by researchers from SEngine, University of Washington, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.

“We have been overjoyed by the progress this patient has made over more than two years following a treatment course recommended by the PARIS® Test,” said Dr. Carla Grandori, CEO of SEngine. “We first received a sample of her tumor following an unsuccessful surgery to remove a gastrointestinal obstruction, at a time when she was unable to eat and in hospice care. Her remarkable turnaround reaffirms the power of our approach, and further, helped us identify a cohort of ovarian cancer patients likely to respond to similar precision treatments.”

About PARIS^® Test
The PARIS® Test is a next-generation diagnostic test that predicts drug responses integrating knowledge of cancer genomics with drug sensitivity testing of patient-derived live cells combined with robotics and proprietary algorithms. SEngine’s CLIA certified PARIS® Test generates actionable drug sensitivity reports for patients and is applicable to all solid tumors including colon, breast, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancer. Cancer derived cells grown in 3D outside the body maintain the functionality of the original tumor as well as its genomic characteristics. For cancers where a treatment path is not clear, such as many metastatic and recurrent cancers, the PARIS® Test provides crucial information to treating physicians to match the right drug to the right patient.

About SEngine Precision Medicine
SEngine Precision Medicine Inc. is a precision oncology company revolutionizing cancer therapies by pre-testing drugs on patient-derived 3D cultures utilizing patient specific tumor cells. As a spinout from world-renowned experts at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, SEngine is leveraging over two decades of R&D in diagnostics and drug discovery. The company is commercializing the PARIS® Test, a next-generation diagnostic test that predicts drug responses – integrating knowledge of cancer genomics with phenotypic testing of patient-derived live cells combined with robotics and proprietary algorithms. SEngine’s CLIA certified PARIS® Test generates actionable drug sensitivity reports for patients with solid tumors. SEngine is also pursuing drug discovery via strategic collaborations with biopharmaceutical / pharma companies by deploying its precision oncology platform.

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Media Contact:

Ulrich Mueller, Chief Business Officer
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^[1] Gershenson, D. M. et al. Trametinib versus standard of care in patients with recurrent low-grade serous ovarian cancer (GOG 281/LOGS): an international, randomised, open-label, multicentre, phase 2/3 trial. Lancet 399, 541–553 (2022).