Tempus, a technology company focused on helping doctors personalize cancer care by collecting, sorting and analyzing clinical and molecular data and the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have entered into a second collaboration aimed at identifying the most effective care for individuals diagnosed with breast cancer by analyzing molecular data related to in-vitro biological models developed at the university.
As part of the newest collaboration, Tempus will use bioinformatics and machine learning to analyze molecular, phenotypic, therapeutic and to the extent available outcome data for hundreds of breast cancer patients. Tempus and researchers at U-M will then utilize this data to improve the utility of various patient derived biological models, which can be grown and used for drug screening in an effort to learn how best to treat patients in a personalized manner.
In the United States, breast cancer is the most common non-skin cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women. In 2017, it is estimated that more than 250,000 U.S. women will be diagnosed with new cases of invasive breast cancer.
The University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center is among the top-ranked national cancer programs for both research and patient care. It is one of 47 centers designated “comprehensive” by the National Cancer Institute and one of 27 institutions that make up the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which sets national guidelines for consistent, high-quality and cost-effective cancer care.
“We have more treatment options for advanced breast cancer than for any other solid tumor, yet far too many women still die of this disease,” said Dr. Sofia Merajver, Scientific Director of the Breast Oncology Program at the University of Michigan. “We are looking forward to working with Tempus, whose technology will help us gain new insight into why certain models are more representative of patients than others, and how we can adopt these models to improve their efficacy.”
“While progress has been made in the battle against breast cancer, there are still too many unknowns that put the lives of those diagnosed at risk,” said Eric Lefkofsky, Co-founder and CEO at Tempus. “We are looking forward to bringing our technology platform to investigators at the University of Michigan who are working tirelessly to find new avenues to bring precision medicine into the clinic, where it can do the most good.”
About Tempus
Tempus is a technology company that is building the world’s largest library of molecular and clinical data and an operating system to make that data accessible and useful. We enable physicians to deliver personalized cancer care for patients through our interactive analytical and machine learning platform. We provide genomic sequencing services and analyze molecular and therapeutic data to empower physicians to make real-time, data-driven decisions. Our goal is for each patient to benefit from the treatment of others who came before by providing physicians with tools that learn as we gather more data. For more information, visit tempus.com.