Champions Oncology Partners with Sarcoma Alliance to Bring Personalized Treatment Options to Sarcoma Patients

HACKENSACK, N.J. and MILL VALLEY, Calif., Sept. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Champions Oncology and Sarcoma Alliance today announced a partnership in the fight against sarcoma. Under the collaboration, Champions Oncology will sponsor the Sarcoma Alliance Suzanne Renee Leider Memorial Assistance Fund.

The Assistance Fund program offers financial assistance to reimburse sarcoma patients for expenses directly related to obtaining a second opinion from a sarcoma specialist. Scientific literature reinforces the importance of this program, reporting that diagnoses are more accurate and outcomes are better when sarcoma patients are treated by sarcoma experts. The Assistance Fund is an integral part of Sarcoma Alliance's mission to provide guidance, education and support to everyone affected by sarcoma.

"Sarcoma Alliance is the leading patient advocacy group and resource for sarcoma patients, and we are thrilled to work together to support patients through this program," said Ronnie Morris, M.D., President of Champions Oncology. "Sponsoring the Assistance Fund program will provide members of the sarcoma community with information and resources to educate and improve their treatment options."

Added Alison Olig, Executive Director of Sarcoma Alliance, "We are very excited about our newfound partnership with Champions Oncology. Champions Oncology's personalized TumorGraft is an exciting technology which has shown great promise to help patients with sarcoma, and we look forward to following their upcoming clinical trial with sarcoma patients. Their generous support of the Suzanne Renee Leider Memorial Assistance Fund will help maintain an essential program for sarcoma patients."

Champions Oncology has developed the TumorGraft technology for clinical use, allowing a personalized approach to treatment decisions for cancer patients.  Champions Oncology has significant experience and a dedicated focus on advancing sarcoma treatment. The rare and heterogeneous nature of sarcomas and the lack of well-defined treatment strategies make this cancer type well suited to a personalized approach such as TumorGrafts. In the July 2014 edition of the American Cancer Society journal, Cancer, Stebbing et al. discuss the high accuracy of the personalized TumorGraft model to predict clinical therapeutic response in sarcoma patients. Based on these results, Champions is initiating a prospective clinical trial to validate the accuracy of the model in a large cohort of sarcoma patients. Additional studies in other tumor types involving TumorGrafts have demonstrated their high rates of predictability, greater than 80 percent, using multiple therapies, including single-agent and combination chemotherapy regimens, targeted biological drugs and anti-angiogenics.

About Champions Oncology

Champions Oncology, Inc. is engaged in the development of advanced technology solutions and services to personalize the development and use of oncology drugs. The Company's TumorGraft technology platform is a novel approach to personalizing cancer care based upon the implantation of primary human tumors in immune deficient mice followed by propagation of the resulting engraftments, or TumorGrafts, in a manner that preserves the biological characteristics of the original human tumor in order to determine the efficacy of a treatment regimen. The Company uses this technology in conjunction with related services to offer solutions for two customer groups:  Personalized Oncology Solutions, in which results help guide the development of personalized treatment plans, and Translational Oncology Solutions, in which pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies seeking personalized approaches to drug development can lower the cost and increase the speed of developing new drugs. TumorGrafts are procured through agreements with a number of institutions in the U.S. and overseas as well as through Champions' Personalized Oncology Solutions business. For more information, please visit www.championsoncology.com.  

About Sarcoma Alliance

The Sarcoma Alliance is a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1999, with a mission is to provide guidance, education and support to everyone affected by sarcoma.  The Sarcoma Alliance assists men and woman of every age group and sarcoma subtype throughout the world. For more information, please visit sarcomaalliance.org.

SOURCE Sarcoma Alliance