CrownBio has established an agreement with the University of Utah to acquire and commercialize the university’s unique collection of patient-derived mouse models of breast cancer.
The models were developed by Alana Welm, PhD, a cancer researcher at Huntsman Cancer Institute and an associate professor in the department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah.
With these well-characterized patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models — mice implanted with tissue or cells from a patient’s tumor — Welm set out to re-create the microenvironment and underlying mechanisms of human breast cancer development, as well as its process of spreading through the body (metastasis).
Because of the variability and complexity of breast cancer, it has been difficult for the scientific community to develop reliable and translatable preclinical models of the disease.
To date, PDX models have been the best at mimicking the variability found in cancer patients and predicting how a treatment will perform before entering into costly clinical trials.
These preclinical PDX mice include models of triple negative breast cancer, treatment-resistant cancers, and cancers with clinically relevant genetic mutations, including BRCA1 and ESR1.
Crown Bioscience will make these breast cancer models accessible to the scientific community, to help improve the preclinical development of therapies that could overcome current treatment limitations.
“CrownBio provides the biopharmaceutical community with preclinical solutions that enable the exploration of new treatment strategies, and improved translation to the clinic,” Jean-Pierre Wery, PhD, CrownBio’s CEO, said in a press release.
“By licensing and commercializing Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah’s breast cancer models, these valuable translational models are made available to breast cancer researchers worldwide,” he said.
CrownBio is one of the leading service providers for preclinical assessment of investigational cancer therapies.
The collection will be commercialized alongside the more than 2,500 PDX models included in the company’s proprietary HuPrime PDX collection. This collection supports preclinical oncology research into more than 30 cancer types, including rare indications and highly specific molecular targets, according to the company’s website.