ChosenMed and Leto Laboratories Signing Strategic Cooperation Agreement

Immunotherapy is an emerging therapy for cancers following traditional “weapons”- surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and targeted therapy. Under the context of precision medicine, clinical studies suggest that biomarkers related to PD-L1 expression, tumor mutational load (TML), microsatellite instability (MSI), and tumor microenvironment (TME) are closely associated with the efficacy of immunotherapy, hence biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, efficacy prediction, and prognosis have become a research hotspot, as immune checkpoint inhibitors are more widely used in clinical settings.

This cooperation aims to search for more predictive and prognostic biomarkers with higher efficiency, enhancing their clinical use to benefit more patients. Being a state-level high-tech company specializing in precision oncology, ChosenMed will work in harness with Leto Laboratories on target screening, central laboratory tests, concurrent clinical trials, data interpretation, patient recruitment/enrollment, and registration and marketing of new drugs and companion diagnostic devices.

On Predictive and Prognostic Molecular Markers for Tumor Immunotherapy

ChosenMed uses NGS, in combination with bioinformatics technology, to perform multi-gene panel testing to identify the high-frequency mutations in Chinese population, an effort supported by Cancer Genome Atlas of China (CGAC) in which ChosenMed participated. It then finds out about the therapeutic efficacy and prognosis through regular follow-up visits to patients. After reviewing molecular profiling, what role biomarkers play in the efficacy and prognosis will be figured out, providing statistics and scientific evidence for tumor research and clinical diagnosis.

On Bioinformatics Data-mining for the Tumor Panel

The bioinformatics team of ChosenMed developed MSIsensor2 and MSIsensor-ct (MSI testing) based on the sequencing data obtained from single tumor tissue and circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA). They are integrated with AI technology, and MSIsensor, the first NGS-based MSI testing of ChosenMed, is the foundation. With such improvement, MSIsensor2 and MSIsensor-ct are faster, more accurate and applicable, facilitating the bioinformatics data-mining for the tumor panel.

On Medical Screening for Patient Recruitment in Clinical Trials

ChosenMed is going to support increasing sample size for Leto’s new drug development through its self-developed bioinformatic analysis platform. It can, to a certain degree, solve problems in patient recruitment, improve drug development efficiency, and help advance the clinical trials. At the same time, ChosenMed and Leto Laboratories will jointly develop a new panel/ immunotherapy-oriented test platform, which will function as a central laboratory for medical screening before patients are enrolled for clinical trials.

ChosenMed and Leto Laboratories intend to collaborate more deeply at strategic level in the future on marketing and brand promotion, scientific research, product development, and conference organization, to promote exchange among and knowledge sharing by experts on the frontier technologies and improve the industrial knowledge base and expert database, while developing predictive and prognostic biomarkers for solid tumor immunotherapy and getting the companion diagnostic devices registered at the same time. This, they believe, will foster the development of precision medicine in the world and benefit more cancer patients.

About Leto Laboratories

Leto Laboratories is a state-level high-tech company, and a recognized Sci- Tech R&D organization in Beijing. The company is devoted to research on protein in the life science field. It possesses directional protein refolding technology, and self-developed, world-leading platforms for protein refolding screening, purification and dosage form development, and fixed-point protein coupling design. It focuses on developing independent IPR in biopharmaceutical area, and has built a complete quality management system for R&D, especially in early-stage R&D of anti-cancer drugs, engineering design and manufacturing process scale-up.

About ChosenMed

ChosenMed is dedicated to developing and upgrading/ iterating diagnostic products for liquid biopsy in oncology, based on its NGS and data mining technology, and CGAC and Big Data Platform for Precision Oncology project. It also brings genetic testing and AI into this effort. Its business covers cancer screening, companion diagnostics, dynamic monitoring, and prognosis evaluation. It tries to find out the baselines and biomarkers specific to Chinese population in oncology, so as to facilitate the development of anti-cancer drugs. ChosenMed’s Medical Laboratory has been accredited by College of American Pathologists (CAP), and has passed, at full grades, the external quality assessment (EQA) programs/ schemes by National Center for Clinical Laboratories (NCCL) of National Health Commission of China and European Molecular Genetics Quality Network (EMQN).