Personalis Enters into a Research Agreement with FLX Bio to Provide Comprehensive Tumor Immunogenomics Profiling for Clinical Study
Cutting Edge Platform Enables the Detection of Changes in the Tumor Microenvironment Following Treatment with FLX475
MENLO PARK, Calif. and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – May 20, 2019 – Personalis, Inc., a leader in advanced genomics for cancer, today announced that it has entered into a research agreement with FLX Bio, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing orally-available, small molecule drugs targeting the immune drivers of cancer and inflammatory diseases. Under the terms of the agreement, FLX Bio will utilize Personalis’ universal cancer immunogenomics platform, ImmunoID NeXT™, to evaluate therapy-related changes in tumors of advanced cancer patients participating in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial evaluating FLX475, a CCR4 antagonist, as monotherapy or in combination with pembrolizumab.
“Using the ImmunoID NeXT™ Platform for our FLX475 studies will help confirm its mechanism of action and demonstrate that inhibiting the CCR4 receptor with FLX475 blocks the migration of regulatory T-cells (Treg) into tumors,” said Brian Wong, M.D., Ph.D., President and CEO of FLX Bio, Inc. “With this cutting edge platform, we may be able to show that FLX475, by blocking Treg migration, decreases immune suppression and stimulates an immune response against cancer cells in the tumor microenvironment.”
Via the deep interrogation and analysis of ~20,000 genes in both DNA and RNA, ImmunoID NeXT™ consolidates multiple biomarker assays into one; providing a multidimensional view of the tumor and the tumor microenvironment (TME) from a single sample. The platform is an end-to-end solution for immuno- and precision oncology biomarker discovery applications, simultaneously enabling the analysis of: tumor escape mechanisms (including HLA typing and somatic mutation detection), immune repertoire profiles, neoantigen load, tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), oncoviruses, and immune checkpoint gene expression.
With the ImmunoID NeXT™ Platform, FLX Bio will be able to compare pre- and post-treatment tumor biopsy samples, providing a comprehensive picture of treatment-related changes in tumors. In addition, FLX Bio will use the platform to assess levels of a variety of inflammation-related and immune cell type-related markers in its ongoing Phase 2 clinical studies of FLX475.
FLX Bio is now enrolling patients with multiple types of cancer in the Phase 1 portion of its open-label, dose-escalation and cohort expansion Phase 1/2 study. The study is being conducted at leading cancer centers across the United States, Australia and Asia. The study will evaluate the tolerability profile of FLX475 as a monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab. Additionally, using Personalis’ ImmunoID NeXT™ Platform as well as other biomarkers, the study will also assess changes in the tumor microenvironment of both monotherapy and combination therapy. For more information please visit clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT03674567.
“We’re delighted to work with FLX Bio, innovators who share our vision that a more comprehensive approach to tumor immunogenomic profiling is necessary to enable the development of more efficacious, next-generation cancer therapies,” Personalis CEO, John West, said. “ImmunoID NeXT™ is ideal for applications such as this: maximizing the data generated from a single tumor sample with the goal of characterizing the complex interplay between the tumor cells and immune cells of the tumor microenvironment. Our companies share a common belief that the complexity and dynamic nature of the tumor-immune interactions demands that combinatorial biomarkers will likely be required to most effectively predict responders and non-responders to these therapies.”
About Personalis, Inc.
Personalis, Inc. is a growing cancer genomics company transforming the development of next-generation therapies by providing more comprehensive molecular data about each patient’s cancer and immune response. The company’s NeXT™ Platform is designed to adapt to the complex and evolving understanding of cancer, providing its biopharmaceutical customers with information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, together with the immune system, from a single tissue sample. The Personalis Clinical Laboratory is GxP aligned as well as CLIA’88-certified and CAP-accredited. For more information, please visit www.personalis.com and follow Personalis on Twitter (@PersonalisInc).
About FLX Bio
FLX Bio is a clinical stage immunology-based biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing oral small molecule therapies for patients with significant unmet needs in oncology and inflammatory diseases. Utilizing our proprietary discovery platform, we develop highly selective small molecules that are designed to modulate the fundamental immune responses underlying these diseases. FLX has rapidly discovered and advanced two drug candidates each uniquely targeting CCR4, including our lead oncology drug candidate, FLX475, in now in clinical development and our lead inflammation drug candidate, FLX193, expected to enter the clinic in atopic dermatitis in the second half of 2019.
Contacts for FLX Bio, Inc.
Media Contact:
Angela Bitting
media@flxbio.com
(925) 202-6211
Investor Contact:
Sylvia Wheeler
swheeler@wheelhouselsa.com
Contact for Personalis, Inc.
Jennifer Havlek
pr@personalis.com
www.personalis.com
(650) 752-1300