Poor cancer research models lead to poor drug development, which is highlighted by the fact that over 90% of cancer drugs fail in clinical trials. This has spurred the development of more advanced cancer models made directly from patient tumors, called patient-derived organoids (PDOs). Despite their potential to mimic patient tumors in the clinic, available methods to analyze them are limited, preventing access to rich patient-relevant data within them. Therefore, Orbits Oncology is developing the most advanced PDO analysis to better recapitulate clinical patient response in the lab and transform them into digital surrogates of the patients. Peer-reviewed publications demonstrate that their analysis surpasses the current industry standard and exhibits a strong correlation with patient-matched progression free survival in clinical trial with pancreatic cancer patients.
What is the problem?
Over 90% of cancer drugs fail in clinical trials, with an estimated 50% of the failures due to a lack of efficacy in patients. A major contributing factor is the gap between lab research and patients in the clinic. Early-stage cancer research models such as cells and mice do not predict how patients will respond to a drug, resulting in poor candidates prone to clinical failure. To combat this, more advanced cancer models, made directly from patient tumors, called patient-derived organoids (PDOs) have been developed to better represent the patient in the lab. However, the highly impactful PDO technology is limited by rudimentary analysis methods, resulting in significant loss of valuable data, misleading drug insights, and diminished translational value. In other words, the potential of a PDO bridge to the patient is lost.
What is their solution?
Orbits Oncology addresses these challenges to build a better bridge to the patient. Using computer vision and artificial intelligence (trained on over 56TB of PDO data), their software platform analyzes PDO microscope imagery to capture the complex features of PDOs and provide a more dynamic and clinically relevant picture of drug responses. By bringing patients earlier in drug development via PDO analysis, Orbits Oncology acts as a "smart filter" for clinical efficacy in drug candidate selection prior to IND filing. With each PDO analyzed, their platform builds out a digital registry of patient profiles to enable better understanding of drug responses on an individual and patient population level. This increases clinical trial success and speed to drug approval, thus resulting in higher return on investment.
