Veracyte, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCYT), a global diagnostics company, and Gustave Roussy, a leading cancer center worldwide, announced today that they have entered into a collaboration to bring together their respective capabilities to provide novel insights into the underlying biology of metastatic tumors, which may help biopharmaceutical companies accelerate development of new cancer therapies. The multi-year partnership will leverage Gustave Roussy’s expansive biorepository of tumor samples and associated data, as well as Veracyte’s Biopharma Atlas, a machine learning-driven, multi-omic solution that is designed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of clinical trials.
Through the partnership, Gustave Roussy’s Department of Therapeutic Innovation and Early Clinical Trials (DITEP) will provide metastatic tumor samples and data for multiple cancer indications that are derived from its major innovative research projects, particularly for new immunotherapies. Veracyte will combine these assets with its multi-omics testing and machine learning capabilities to create a Veracyte Biopharma Atlas reference database of genomic and immunomic biomarkers. The company will then leverage this deep characterization of each tumor’s biology, particularly its immune contexture, to derive further insights about tumors that are more likely to respond to a particular therapy.
“We believe that by better understanding the underlying biology of tumors, we can ultimately help improve the success rate of clinical trials for novel therapies and ensure that more patients can benefit from them once they are broadly available,” said Stéphane Champiat, M.D., Ph.D., oncologist in the drug development department, known as DITEP, at Gustave Roussy. “Through our work in early-stage development of cutting-edge drugs, we have amassed extensive tumor knowledge. We believe Veracyte, with its multi-omic tools and machine learning capabilities, is an ideal partner to help us extract meaningful insights from these assets.”
“We are delighted to enter into this collaboration with Gustave Roussy, a leading comprehensive cancer center in Europe and worldwide,” said Corinne Danan, general manager of Veracyte’s Biopharma business unit. “This partnership will enable us to augment our Veracyte Biopharma Atlas reference database with a large number of patients tumor samples and data from innovative cancer therapies. Ultimately, we believe this tool may help our biopharmaceutical partners accelerate development of new, precision-medicine therapies that improve outcomes for patients with cancer.”