French-led collaboration has resulted in a comprehensive collection of human colorectal cancer models, firm claims.

Oncodesign has negotiated exclusive commercialization rights to distribute what it claims is the world’s most comprehensive collection of human colorectal cancer models developed directly from patients’ tumors. The collection, developed as part of the French industry-academia CReMEC consortium led by Oncodesign, is based on the firm’s Chi-Mice® platform for deriving preclinical models from human samples.

Oncodesign claims the new colorectal models will represent a breakthrough for the evaluation of future therapies. “This collection is the result of a five-year research program and is the most comprehensive worldwide in terms of the range of genetic heterogeneity and characterization,” claims Philippe Genne, president and CEO of Oncodesign. “The CReMEC collection ensures low-passage experimental models to fit the clinical reality. This is all the more relevant since preclinical research usually relies on cell lines that may be many years old, grown in tissue culture and then grafted onto mice. Cell lines may drift into different genetic profiles and are not reliable enough to evaluate anticancer therapies.”

The €5.4 million CReMEC project involved leading French institutes and three pharmaceutical companies. The resulting mouse models are fully characterized, and associated clinical, molecular, pharmacological, and histological data are logged in a dedicated database in parallel with a biobank of more than 5,000 samples, Oncodesign notes.

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