Funding to support a cancer diagnostic system to measure empirical treatment response
Houston, TX, July 20, 2023 - EMPIRI, Inc., who is revolutionizing how we treat cancer by providing empirical, personalized, drug response data prior to treatment selection, today announced the award of a Phase I NSF SBIR grant in support of EMPIRI’s automation of their E-Slice platform.
This grant will support further development of a first in class cancer diagnostic system that can deliver clinically actionable, personalized, drug response data for individual cancer patients using the E-slice platform. E-slice is a novel 3D culture-based assessment, which has been shown to accurately predict individual cancer patients’ response to treatment.
EMPIRI currently offers E-slice applications from their CLIA Certified laboratory in Houston, TX as a LDT as well as a service to pharmaceutical and academic research partners to enhance their drug discovery pipelines and clinical trials. Automation of the E-slice platform will expand EMPIRI’s service capabilities and future clinical testing applications. Beyond improving outcomes for cancer patients, the automation of E-slice is expected to have a far-reaching impact, accelerating and economizing drug screening, discovery, and development for pharma and academic organizations.
Today, cancer therapies are largely non-curative and provide poor patient outcomes. E-slice has been validated in two clinical studies to accurately predict patient response to chemotherapies and targeted therapy combinations. Furthermore, ti can measure immunotherapy efficacy from tumor-resident immune cells from patien tumors. This innovative method can be used to measure the cytotoxic effects of individual drugs as well as drug combinations to optimize efficacy and reduce toxicity by selecting optimized treatment for each individual patient.
“We are at the beginning of an exciting collaboration with the National Science Foundation to further develop our proprietary plaform for personalized treatment of cancer patients,” said Dave Gallup, Chief Executive Officer of EMPIRI, Inc. “We look forward to leverage this partnership to expand our pharma and academic services, and into clinical services that can maximize the deployment of currently available FDA approved drugs to optimize cancer treatment for all patients, including those without a standard of care treatment options.”
About EMPIRI, Inc.
EMPIRI is revolutionizing the way we treat cancer by providing empirical, personalized, drug response data prior to treatment selection. EMPIRI’s novel 3D culture method (E-slice) retains the integrity of each patient’s native cancer ecosystem. This innovative culture method measures cytotoxic effects of individual drugs or drug combinations using live patient tumor tissues. To make the greatest impact with this novel methodology, EMPIRI will automate this proprietary method to provide insight into clinical treatment decision making.
Dave Gallup CEO EMPIRI, Inc.