MCLEAN, Va., Jan. 20, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Perthera, the premier personalized medicine service company, today recapped several of the company's major achievements in 2014 while looking toward its impact on the future of personalized medicine in 2015. Most telling of the growth factors was the more than doubling of the number of cancer patient referrals to be analyzed by Perthera's Expert Oncology (ExpO) system and expert oncology teams in the past year. The only organization to combine the latest multi-omic molecular profiling, including genomic, proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis with a patient's medical history, was founded by Dendy Young and Emanuel F. Petricoin, III, PhD in 2013.
"This past year has been a defining stage in the extraordinary growth of our young company – one in which we have not only achieved conceptual confirmation but also have truly helped oncologists identify personalized treatment options for the unique cancers of their most critical patients," said Dendy Young, chairman of Perthera. "Through this resounding affirmation from the industry, Perthera promises to set the new standard in cancer care, by bridging the gap between molecular testing and patient therapy. We are excited to play the lead role in this endeavor."
Major 2014 milestones and highlights for Perthera include:
The Fight against Pancreatic Cancer – Perthera formed a partnership with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, the national organization fighting pancreatic cancer in a comprehensive way through research, patient support, community outreach and advocacy for a cure. Through the relationship, Perthera is providing its advanced molecular diagnostic testing and analysis services to pancreatic cancer patients for the organization's "Know Your Tumor" initiative. The partnership has been assisting pancreatic cancer patients in obtaining a molecular analysis of their tumor with the long-term goal of building a registry of outcomes data to accelerate progress against the disease. Throughout the partnership, both organizations have been monitoring and tracking patient outcomes data for future use within the pancreatic cancer research community.
Next-Generation Sequencing – Perthera formed a strategic alliance with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University (Lurie Cancer Center) and the Northwestern Medicine Developmental Therapeutics Institute (NMDTI). The main goals of the partnership are to conduct a translational research program designed to assess the utility of integration of next-generation sequencing, proteomic, and phospho-proteomic data in oncology developmental therapeutics and clinical practice. The Lurie Cancer Center and NMDTI are working with Perthera on clinical protocols that incorporate Perthera's approaches and methodologies to cancer protocol treatment and will assess the impact on overall disease management and patient outcomes.
Key Growth across Data Science, Clinical Expertise and Business Development – Crucial additions were made to the Perthera executive team, Scientific Advisory Board and Medical Review Panel including:
- Subha Madhavan, PhD, Chief Data and Bioinformatics Officer, Perthera and Director of the Innovation Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Georgetown University Medical Center
- Maya Kiss, MAS, Health Policy & Law, Director, Business Development, Perthera
- Rachel Ferkel Director of Sales, Perthera
- John Quackenbush, PhD, Professor, Dana-Faber Cancer Institute and Harvard University School of Public Health and co-founder, GenoSpace LLC.
- Neil Spector, MD, Associate Professor, Duke University School of Medicine
Thought Leadership – Perthera executives have led a number of engaging presentations to the audiences of scientific-, clinical- and patient-focused industry events. These sessions included:
- Amazon Web Services Symposium; Subha Madhavan
- Bio-IT World, Genome-wide Multi-omics Cancer Informatics Analysis on the Cloud, Subha Madhavan
- Chris4Life Colon Cancer Foundation; Michael Pishvaian, MD, PhD
- HealthTechNet meeting; Dendy Young
- IEEE Conference on Big data in Bioinformatics and Health Informatics, Subha Madhavan
- ION Solutions Emerging Therapies; Michael Pishvaian, MD, PhD
- Next Generation Sequencing Data Congress; Subha Madhavan
About Perthera
Perthera, based in McLean, Va, is the premier personalized medicine service company. As the only organization to combine the latest multi-omic molecular profiling, including genomic, proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis, with a patient's medical history and state-of-the-art diagnostic technology, Perthera enables oncologists to deliver precision medicine to treat an individual patient's unique cancer.
For more information, visit us on www.perthera.com, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.