Yonkers, New York, September 6, 2007 / – Aureon Laboratories, Inc. today announced the successful completion of a development project with AstraZeneca designed to identify patients with non-small-cell lung cancer that may benefit from treatment with IRESSA®.
The project was accomplished by integrating a patient’s clinical data with tumor biomarker profiles and image analysis features using on-slide technologies and machine learning approaches developed at Aureon. Aureon Laboratories confirmed that specific clinical features appear associated with overall survival and has identified several protein biomarkers which appear important in predicting prognosis. The models provide further support to the utility of a systems pathology approach in understanding complex biological mechanisms of disease.
Aureon’s System Pathology approach is particularly useful to pharmaceutical companies as targeted therapies gain momentum and personalized medicine becomes a reality. The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly focused on the development of targeted treatments for a variety of reasons ranging from adverse drug reactions to the duration and cost of clinical trials. Aureon’s technology may enable patients to be pre-classified for response to a specific drug prior to actual drug use: this could lead to more effective, personalized treatment and shorter, more-focused clinical trials.
Vijay Aggarwal, PhD, CEO and President of Aureon Laboratories, said, “This project is only the first step in what we believe will be a fruitful area of research. We also believe that Aureon’s Systems Pathology platform technology can be used to benefit patients in a number of areas – this project validates our technology in yet another setting: pharmaceutical development. Finally, it is an excellent next step in Aureon’s development as a company after our 2006 launch of Prostate Px? for prostate cancer recurrence prediction.”
Aureon’s Systems Pathology platform includes computer based image analysis of tumor tissue samples and tissue-based, quantitative biomarker assessment coupled with sophisticated mathematical tools to develop models of response and outcome prediction. Aureon’s Systems Pathology technology is the foundation for the Prostate Px test.
About Aureon Laboratories
Aureon Laboratories' mission is to enable personalized patient care through predictive pathology. Aureon has developed a high throughput Systems Pathology technology platform to predict individual clinical outcomes through the interrogation of tissue. The platform generates and analyzes an integrated, digital view of clinical findings, tissue micro-anatomy and tissue molecular pathology to determine which combination of features predicts specified individual clinical outcomes. Allied with major cancer centers, Aureon operates a CLIA and CAP certified laboratory that provides predictive pathology services to the practicing physician. For more information about Aureon, go to www.aureon.com or call 1-888-SYS-PATH.
NOTE: Prostate Px and Px SCORE are registered trademarks of Aureon Laboratories, Inc.
SOURCE: Aureon Laboratories, Inc.