SEngine Precision Medicine, Inc. and Oncodesign Société Anonyme announced the signature of a research collaboration agreement for R&D of a new personalized cancer treatment for aggressive and untreatable tumors. SEngine is commercializing the PARIS® Test, a diagnostic tool that pre-screens a broad panel of marketed cancer drugs on live patient-derived tumor cells. The results are analyzed using proprietary algorithms, culminating in a clinically actionable drug sensitivity report provided to oncologists for patients whose cancer has no remaining actionable treatment protocols.

Dramatic results on the test's predictive value have been reported for a number of terminally ill cancer patients. Oncodesign has developed Nanocyclix®, a medicinal chemistry platform for generating highly potent and selective small macrocyclic kinase inhibitors. Using a probe-based drug discovery paradigm aimed to find highly effective inhibitors for intractable kinases, Oncodesign has built an extensive set of high potential compound probes that are highly novel.

Since its inception, Oncodesign has advanced a two of these compounds to near clinical stage. Testing of a subset of potent and selective Nanocyclix® probes against an undisclosed target proposed by SEngine has shown significant selective cancer cell killing effects on a broad range of patient-derived live 3D-tumor cell systems (organoids) for multiple cancer types that are highly aggressive and without currently existing treatment options. This observation confirms the potential use of the Nanocyclix® probes in SEngine's precision oncology platform to transform future cancer treatments.

SEngine and Oncodesign have initiated a joint research collaboration to evaluate the feasibility to convert the already identified Nanocyclix® inhibitor series into drug candidates that are likely to be effective in the clinic. During this initial phase, both companies will combine their respective technology platforms to advance the program. SEngine will provide research funding to Oncodesign for the initial optimization of the compound series up to a predefined level.

It is anticipated that this initial phase will be followed by a larger research collaboration with an option to license at a more advanced stage.