Caris Molecular Intelligence™ Identifies Key Biomarkers of Clinical Benefit and Resistance to Chemotherapy through Multi-Technology Tumor Profiling

-- Peer-Reviewed Case Study from Fox Chase Cancer Center Demonstrates Value of Company's Unique Approach to Precision Medicine to Uncover Critical Treatment Insights

IRVING, Texas, Aug. 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Caris Life Sciences®, a leading biosciences company focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine, announced today publication of a case study in which the company's comprehensive tumor profiling service, Caris Molecular Intelligence™, helped guide successful anticancer treatment for a patient with neuroendocrine carcinoma. The case study, published in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (JNCCN) by researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center, offers guidance to oncologists seeking to personalize treatment to individual patients' tumors by way of multi-technology tumor profiling.

"The data outlined in this peer-reviewed case study clearly shows that Caris Molecular Intelligence's multi-technology approach to tumor profiling is an essential tool for individualization of cancer treatment," said David D. Halbert, Chairman and CEO of Caris Life Sciences. "In this case report, DNA sequencing and immunohistochemistry analysis were integral to uncovering life-changing drug options for the patient. This powerful example further validates our approach, which we know provides the most actionable treatment information for doctors and their patients." 

Successful Imatinib Therapy for Neuroendocrine Carcinoma with Activating KIT Mutation

The JNCCN paper represents the first documented case of an activating KIT mutation in a neuroendocrine tumor (NET) and of successful treatment with both a kinesin 11 (KIF11) inhibitor and imatinib. The patient, a 48-year-old man with a refractory, metastatic NET who was unresponsive to conventional chemotherapy, was treated with a KIF11 inhibitor in a phase I clinical trial, with a clinically meaningful partial response. However, after 20 months, the patient experienced tumor progression.

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis through Caris Molecular Intelligence revealed an activating mutation in exon 11 of the KIT receptor tyrosine kinase, which has been associated with response to imatinib in patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). After two weeks of imatinib therapy, the patient's pain improved and the presence of disease significantly declined. After two months of treatment, the patient's recurrent hepatomegaly (abnormally enlarged liver) had normalized, and a liver CT scan confirmed a marked reduction of hepatic lesions. At the time this case report was written, 46 months after his initial diagnosis, the patient had been treated with imatinib for 12 months with good tolerability and no signs of cancer in radiographic imaging.

"In this case, use of multi-platform molecular profiling confirmed the potential benefit of imatinib, which led to impressive symptomatic and radiographic improvements for the patient," noted study co-investigator Igor Astsaturov, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA. "These data further support the approach of molecular characterization of individual tumors as a means to improve anticancer treatment. Such efforts may serve not only to identify new therapeutic targets, but also to tease out the subset of patients who truly derive benefit from largely discarded therapeutic approaches."

About Caris Molecular Intelligence™

Caris Molecular Intelligence™, the industry's leading cancer molecular profiling service, helps oncologists treat cancer smarter by delivering the most potential treatment options for patients. This service has been used by more than 6,500 oncologists to develop individualized and actionable treatment plans for more than 65,000 cancer patients in 59 countries across the globe. Caris Molecular Intelligence integrates the latest relevant panomics data -- the combination of genes, proteins, molecular pathways, and unique patient characteristics -- from clinical studies in cancer and cancer biology to identify the most clinically actionable drug associations approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) or in active clinical trials in the United States. Beyond standard DNA analysis, Caris Molecular Intelligence assesses all relevant biological components, such as RNA, protein expression and gene amplification levels, to provide oncologists with the most treatment options for their patients. Currently, Caris can identify therapeutic guidance for up to 51 FDA-approved drug associations, far exceeding the 19 that can be identified using next-generation sequencing alone. This therapeutic guidance is electronically delivered to the ordering physician in an easy-to-read report that enables development of tailored treatment plans. For more information on Caris Molecular Intelligence, visit www.carismolecularintelligence.com. The Caris Registry™ is a database of clinicopathologic and outcome variables from consenting patients whose tumors underwent multi-technology profiling by Caris Molecular Intelligence™.

About Caris Life Sciences

Caris Life Sciences is a leading biosciences company focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine. Caris Molecular Intelligence™, the industry's first and largest tumor profiling service, provides an oncologist with the most potentially clinically actionable treatment options available to personalize care today. Using a variety of advanced and clinically-relevant technologies that assess all relevant biological components of a patient's cancer, Caris Molecular Intelligence correlates molecular data generated from a tumor with biomarker/drug associations derived from clinical cancer literature. The company is also developing a series of blood tests based on its proprietary Carisome® TOP™ platform, a revolutionary blood-based testing technology for diagnosis, prognosis, and theranosis of cancer and other complex diseases. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Caris Life Sciences offers services throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia and other international markets. To learn more, please visit www.carislifesciences.com.