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Asian Liver Center collaborates with algorithm creator on HCC
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The Asian Liver Center and twoXAR announced a new cooperation in treating hepatocellular carcinoma, with the ultimate goal of finding an alternative to Nexavar.
“Sorafenib [Nexavar, Bayer] has limited effectiveness. Moreover, some patients are unable to tolerate its side effects and are therefore unable to complete a course of treatment,” Mei-Sze Chua, PhD, senior scientist at the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University, told Healio.com/Hepatology. “This collaboration potentially offers more efficacious and safer treatment options for these patients, which will hopefully improve not only patient outcome, but also their quality of life.”
twoXAR’s patent-pending algorithms accelerate finding matches between patients and drug candidates, according to the company. The software makes a preliminary match, and clinicians determine if the match is indeed a good one. Faster searchers may lead to faster drug approvals, according to the company.
“Normally, drug development can take up to 15 years from initial idea to FDA approval,” Andrew A. Radin, CEO of twoXAR, told Healio.com/Hepatology. “If the collaboration is successful, we should be able to shave 5 years or more off this timeline.”
“Despite advances in the underlying biology and pathophysiology of HCC, there have been no parallel advances in drug discovery for this hard-to-treat cancer,” Chua told Healio.com/Hepatology. “With rising incidence and mortality rates of HCC in the U.S., there is an urgent need to identify new and efficacious drugs for HCC. [This collaboration] can significantly accelerate the rate at which new drugs can be tested in HCC patients.”
twoXAR’s technology has been used to make similar disease-to-candidate predictions on patients with more than 60 other conditions, according to the company. – by Janel Miller
Disclosures: Radin is employed by twoXAR. Healio.com/Hepatology was unable to determine Chua’s financial disclosures at the time of publication.