First Clinical Candidate Developed using HUB Organoids® and High Content Screening Targets Cancer Stem Cells in Solid Tumors, Published in Nature Cancer

San Diego, California, April 28, 2022 – Crown Bioscience, a JSR Life Sciences company, and HUB Organoids (HUB) announced today the publication of preclinical data in the journal, Nature Cancer, on a bispecific antibody which prevents the onset of metastasis and slows the growth of primary tumors in experimental models of cancer.  

The study was the result of work by an international consortium, SuppresSTEM which included Crown Bioscience (previously OcellO B.V.) and HUB. Crown Bioscience and HUB led the design of the experiments which were executed using the high content screening platform from Crown Bioscience using HUB Organoids. These studies enabled the discrimination of antibodies that were active against a broad range of mutational profiles and tumor subtypes, with hit validation and mechanism of action studies that enabled selection of optimally performing antibodies. Follow up in vivo studies in matched patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models were also performed by Crown Bioscience.

The work, spanning about five years, involved Crown Bioscience screening a library of hundreds of bispecific antibodies and rescreening of ‘hits’ in a panel of patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids and matching normal organoids, that were developed by HUB and characterized by HUB and other consortium members. Organoids are stem cell-derived mini-organs developed from any patient resection or biopsy tissue that can be grown in the laboratory, which can be applied like conventional cell lines in early drug discovery. 

“This is the first study that has used organoids exclusively for cell-based compound screening and characterization, leading to a compound entering clinical trials. This is a truly remarkable achievement that demonstrates the validity and application of HUB Organoids in high throughput screening and oncology drug discovery”, said Leo Price PhD, Senior Vice President In Vitro Oncology at Crown Bioscience. 

“This groundbreaking work demonstrates the power and potential of HUB Organoid Technology”, commented Rob Vries PhD, CEO at HUB. “Using organoids, we were able to accelerate the timeline from initial discovery to clinical trials to about five years.”

Nature Cancer is a journal which covers the latest, most significant cancer-related advances across the life, physical, applied and social sciences, focusing on new approaches for the development and delivery of diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as clinical studies regarding cancer diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Read the full paper here: https://go.nature.com/3LhuAAy  

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Crown Bioscience, a JSR Life Sciences company, is a global contract research organization (CRO) providing preclinical and translational platforms to advance oncology, immuno-oncology, and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. The company is the only preclinical CRO to hold a commercial license to provide tumor organoid services utilizing HUB technology and has the world’s largest commercially available PDX collection. Crown Bioscience helps deliver superior drug candidates to ensure that patients get the right treatment at the right time. Founded in 2006, Crown Bioscience has nine facilities in the US, Europe and Asia. Find out more: https://www.crownbio.com.

HUB Organoids (HUB) is the global leader in the field of adult stem cell-derived organoid. The technology invented by HUB’s scientists in the lab of world-renowned Prof. Hans Clevers represents a paradigm shift for drug discovery and development, preclinical patient stratification, predictive diagnostics, personalized medicine, clinical trials, regenerative medicine, and companion diagnostics. HUB offers licenses to its proprietary technology and provides drug screening services and access to its living organoid biobanks.

The SuppresSTEM consortium was funded by EU FP7 and involved collaborative work by companies including OcellO B.V./Crown Bioscience, HUB Organoids, and Merus N.V., and international research institutions including the Hubrecht Institute, IRB Barcelona and the Sanger Institute. The Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), the Catalan Institute of Oncology and the company Xenopad also collaborated in data for this publication. The consortium set out to develop novel antibody-based therapeutics targeting cancer stem cells for the treatment of colorectal cancer as well as patient-derived organoid-based screening tools to aid drug discovery. 

Crown Bioscience

Louise Stenson

pr@crownbio.com