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Published on May 18, 2023
Leader in functional precision oncology received funding support from investment arms of the National Brain Tumor Society and the Sontag Foundation
KIYATEC, Inc., the leader in functional precision oncology technology, today announced a new investment from the venture philanthropy arms of two leading brain tumor patient organizations. The Brain Tumor Investment Fund, a affiliate of the National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS), and Sontag Innovation Fund, LLC, a subsidiary of the Sontag Foundation, are providing funding to support further commercialization and adoption of Kiyatec’s clinically-validated testing platform, 3D-Predict™, which published, prospective data has shown to aid therapy selection for patients with glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest form of brain cancer.
“The Sontag Foundation and NBTS have decades of experience serving a disease population that has seen very little innovation and improvement in clinical outcomes. They understand, better than anyone, the vital need to ensure as many patients as possible diagnosed with glioblastoma have access to technologies that can help manage this devastating cancer,” said Kiyatec CEO Matt Gevaert. “Staff at these groups work with scientists, providers, and patients every day. They see the challenges associated with setting up patient-centric treatment plans for individuals with glioblastoma. Our 3D-Predict™ platform has been shown to help predict clinical response to treatments for these tumors and help guide appropriate treatment plans, and we’re honored to receive support from their respective venture philanthropy arms to help us further commercialize it.”
Kiyatec’s clinically validated 3D-Predict™ Glioma test informs therapy selection in the clinic for glioblastoma (GBM) and other high grade glioma patients and is commercially available in the United States. In May 2021 the company published clinical data demonstrating the test’s accurate and statistically significant prediction of high-grade glioma patients’ individual responses to cancer drugs; notably, to drugs they had not yet been treated with. In this cancer indication, known for its low survival, newly diagnosed patients under study lived six months longer when identified by 3D-Predict™ Glioma as responders to standard of care drug therapy as compared to those identified as non-responders. At the 2022 annual meetings of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO), Kiyatec expanded its clinical evidence of continuing excellent test performance, and recently presented additional data at the 2023 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting.
“Neuro-oncologists treating patients with glioblastoma and other high-grade gliomas have too few treatment planning tools available to inform their treatment decisions,” said John Higgins, Managing Director of the Brain Tumor Investment Fund. “That’s why we’ve invested in diagnostic technology that can accurately predict response. This way, we can help ensure patients are getting the right treatment for the best possible outcomes.”
Kiyatec is an established leader in functional precision oncology, in which clinically relevant laboratory models measure the response of living cells to cancer drugs. In this emerging field, the gold standard for performance is direct correlation between measured response in the lab and real world, patient-matched clinical outcomes.
“Functional precision diagnostic tools can be used by care providers to help inform treatment options for patients, which is critical for difficult to treat cancers like glioblastoma,” said Scott Davis, Senior Associate of the Sontag Innovation Fund. “Functional precision oncology tools like 3D-Predict™ can also play a role in preclinical drug development programs to help predict which therapies may successfully translate from preclinical models to patients”.
Glioblastoma is the most common malignant (cancerous) brain tumor, accounting for approximately half of all primary malignant brain tumors. These tumors are also the most aggressive, complex, difficult to treat, and deadly type of brain tumor. Approximately 14,490 new cases of glioblastoma will be diagnosed in the United States in 2023, and it’s estimated that more than 10,000 individuals in the United States will succumb to their disease this year. The five-year survival rate for glioblastoma patients is only 6.9 percent, and the median length of survival is only 8 months. These rates have changed little during the past 30 years.
About KIYATEC, Inc.
Kiyatec is a functional precision oncology company that measures the response of each patient’s live cancer cells to inform oncologists’ treatment selection decisions. The company’s Clinical Services offers clinical testing for high-grade glioma, and is developing assays for use in ovarian, breast, non-small cell lung cancers, and rare tumors in its CLIA certified lab. The company’s Drug Development Services works in partnership with leading biopharmaceutical companies to unlock response dynamics for their pre-clinical investigational drug candidates across the majority of solid tumor types. For more information, visit www.kiyatec.com and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.