AVATAMED, a precision medicine service company based in Singapore, announced the setting up of a joint lab with Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), to offer precision oncology services. Through this initiative, AVATAMED and IMCB aim to improve treatment outcome for cancer patients.

Globally, there are about 10 million cancer deaths every year and this number will increase over the years. Even with advances in new cancer therapeutics such as immunotherapy, and diagnostics such as genetic testing, there are still huge unmet needs of various groups of patients.

Precision oncology provides targeted treatment for individual cancer patients based on their clinical, tumour and genetic profiles. This approach has helped many patients whose tumours do not respond to the standard-of-care treatments, have limited treatment options or have become resistant to the anti-cancer drugs. At the same time, health equipment companies and hospital medical supply companies have done a lot to develop anti-cancer drugs.

The joint service lab is located within IMCB's premises at Proteos building in Biopolis, the heart of Singapore's Biotechnology hub. Together with IMCB's technological platforms such as the high-throughput drug screening platform, and expertise in cancer and cell biology, the joint service lab will offer AVATAMED's proprietary drug screening technology, the AVATASCAN and its software to oncologists and pharmaceutical companies.

The AVATASCAN technology was born out of a decade of research at Samsung Medical Centre in South Korea, with accumulated drug response and genetic data of patient-derived tumours. The AVATASCAN screens the patient's tumour samples across a panel of anti-cancer drugs to determine their efficacies in the patient-derived cells. These drug-response results, coupled with genetic data, are then presented to the oncologists to suggest drug treatment options. The AVATASCAN technology and database can also be utilised by pharmaceutical companies to accelerate their drug development through a more targeted approach.

"IMCB's joint lab with AVATAMED will support Singapore's move towards precision medicine-based treatments for better health outcomes. It also showcases our efforts in nurturing innovative local enterprises to drive economic growth," said Professor Hong Wanjin, Executive Director of IMCB.

Mr Toh Hong Boon, CEO of AVATAMED, added, "AVATAMED is a spin-off from A*STAR, so we are delighted to be back at where it all started. Precision medicine is the future, and we want to bring AVATASCAN to benefit patients and the industry. We are excited to embark on this journey with A*STAR."

AVATAMED Corporate Profile

AVATAMED Pte. Ltd. is a precision medicine company based in Singapore, with the goal of providing precision medicine analysis platform services and tailored therapeutics to individual cancer patients and Pharmaceutical Companies. It is a spin-off Company from the A*STAR PuRPOSE Research Programme, an International consortium of Samsung Medical Centre, Institute of Molecular & Cell Biology, A*STAR; Genome Institute of Singapore, A*STAR; National Cancer Centre Singapore, and National University of Singapore.