Pivotal Preclinical Oncology Platform Expands to Include New Patient-Derived Organoid Models

~ HUB patient-derived organoids (PDO) added to CrownBio’s unique platform designed to disrupt traditional drug discovery workflows ~

SAN DIEGO, May 26, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crown Bioscience today announced the expansion of their unique organoid platform with the addition of 130 Hubrecht Organoid Technology (HUB) patient-derived organoids (PDO). This marks a significant milestone in the development of CrownBio’s innovative organoid platform and the first, large-scale commercial availability of HUB PDO for oncology drug discovery services.

Organoid technologies are transforming oncology drug development and disrupting the traditionally followed workflows. CrownBio holds an exclusive license from HUB to provide preclinical oncology drug development and validation services using world-leading HUB Organoid Technology, originally developed by the Clevers lab.

“Organoid models will revolutionize the way preclinical oncology research is performed,” said Henry Li, PhD, chief scientific officer at CrownBio. “Using organoids, drug screening will evolve from current linear workflows to a matrixed high throughput screening approach, allowing lead candidates to be tested simultaneously across multiple patient populations in an easily scalable and clinically-relevant model system.”

The newly available models join CrownBio’s established and ever-expanding platform of PDX-derived organoids (PDXO). PDXO are generated using HUB protocols to derive tumor organoids from CrownBio’s PDX collection, which is the world’s largest commercially available panel of PDX. The complementary panels of patient and PDX-derived organoids, alongside parental PDX models, provide the opportunity to change the way drug discovery is conducted.

The combined collection of in vitro and in vivo patient-derived models are clinically relevant and predictive, and the matched model pairs offer a more efficient and informed transition from in vitro to in vivo studies to help reduce the currently high attrition rates of anticancer agents.

“I am delighted to see the HUB Organoid biobank becoming available to the wider research community for oncology drug discovery,” said Rob Vries, PhD, chief executive officer of HUB. “Our partnership with CrownBio is continuing to equip pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the cutting-edge models needed to transform their anticancer agent development programs.”

Benefits of the newly available PDO models include the availability of non-malignant, healthy tissue-derived organoids. This enables PDO studies to be well controlled for studying compound toxicity and therapeutic windows, including matched tissue controls.

The new models cover the important indications of breast, colon, lung, and pancreatic cancer and are directly derived from European patients. The collection includes PDO from primary and metastatic lesions, multiple lesions from the same patient to capture intra-patient heterogeneity, as well as both healthy and tumor organoids.

CrownBio’s organoid platform is available to clients globally. The newly acquired PDO models have completed transfer to CrownBio. They are available for client studies immediately for efficacy and potency evaluation, combination strategy optimization, and lead candidate selection.

About Crown Bioscience Inc.

Crown Bioscience, a JSR Life Sciences company, is a global drug discovery and development service company providing translational platforms to advance oncology, inflammation, and metabolic disease research. With an extensive portfolio of relevant models and predictive tools, Crown Bioscience enables clients to deliver superior clinical candidates. For more information, visit:

• https://www.crownbio.com
• https://www.jsrlifesciences.com

About HUB

Hubrecht Organoid Technology (HUB) was jointly founded by the Hubrecht Institute, the University Medical Center Utrecht, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. It constitutes a paradigm-shifting platform for drug discovery and development, (pre)clinical patient stratification, predictive diagnostics, personalized medicine, and companion diagnostics. HUB benefits from the pioneering work of Prof. Hans Clevers, who discovered methods how to grow ‘mini-organs’ (HUB Organoids) out of adult stem cell-derived human epithelial tissue. HUB Organoids, which are part of the living biobanks, are characterized by genome sequencing, expression profiling and sensitivity to known and experimental drugs to establish a database linking genetic and transcriptional information to drug responsiveness. HUB offers licenses to its patented Organoid Technology and provides (pre)clinical and clinical trial services, research and development collaborations, predictive diagnostics, and access to its `living biobanks`. More info at https://huborganoids.nl/