Irving-based Caris Life Sciences and Massachusetts’ ConcertAI have announced an expanded translational sciences and clinical development solutions partnership they say will lead to enhanced patient care for people with cancer.

Caris is a leading molecular science, AI, and machine learning technology company actively developing and delivering innovative solutions to revolutionize healthcare. ConcertAI is a leading oncology real-world evidence data and AI technology company.

The companies said that in the coming months, they will create a prospectively generated, electronic health record-enabled, and contemporaneously matched database of molecular, clinical, and multi-modal data that will enable novel insights for precision medicine, therapeutic development, and clinical trials management for academic and biopharma researchers.

Future of cancer care will be driven by ‘massive amounts’ of data

“The future of cancer care will be driven by massive amounts of comprehensive biological and clinical data,” Caris President David Spetzler said in a statement. “Combining the deep clinical data at ConcertAI with the whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing and other data at Caris enables researchers to discover new associations and information to improve patient care, versus datasets with smaller panels that inherently cover only what is known.”

“I’m excited about our unified collaboration and how it will enable us to be far more effective and deliberate with our research partners in accelerating therapeutic development with the goal of helping patients live longer,” Spetzler added.

Builds on collaboration announced in January

The partners said that by building upon a successful January agreement, the expanded collaboration establishes the gold standard of multi-modal data by leveraging Caris’ and ConcertAI’s respective best-in-class molecular, clinical, and multi-modal data to create the largest-scale oncology research platform in the industry.

The initiative will enable multiyear efforts around specific cancers, programs, and molecular targets spanning translational sciences, clinical development, and post-approval evidence generation, the companies said. That includes increased regulatory application of real-world molecular data and direct support for clinical trials.

“By building novel research assets at population scale, integrated with leading technologies and talent, we can partner with both academic researchers and biopharma innovators to accelerate new insights into the underpinnings of cancer biology, rapidly translate these insights to the clinic, and enable novel clinical development approaches,” ConcertAI CEO Jeff Elton said in a statement. “Ultimately, the facilitation of broad-based access to data of this depth and scale, beyond most public or private initiatives, will aid all cancer patients, especially those underserved with few current therapeutic options available to them.”

Largest collection of research-grade clinical oncology data

As a pioneer in precision medicine and molecular profiling, Caris said it has developed real-world database of hundreds of thousands of cases that include genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data, as well as whole slide imaging including H&E (hematoxylin and eosin stain, the most widely used stain in histology and histopathology) and IHCs (immunohistochemistry, which is a test to detect specific molecules on cells).

Caris said it was the first in the industry to provide Whole Exome Sequencing DNA coverage and Whole Transcriptome Sequencing RNA coverage for every patient, which includes mutations, copy number variations, insertions and deletions, fusions and variant transcripts, as well as genomic signatures for gLOH, MSI, HRD, TMB, Caris FOLFIRSTai and Caris GPSai.

ConcertAI said it has the largest collection of research-grade clinical data in oncology, hematology, and urological cancers, representing the treatment and outcomes of almost 7 million patients, partnering with healthcare providers and medical societies around the world.

Its Patient360 specification has become the reference standard for leading biopharma and other research groups, the company said.

The company’s AI SaaS solutions for clinical trial design and clinical development studies have emerged as the leading solution for next generation precision oncology trials, ConcertAI said.

As part of the partnership, the two companies will align their clinical trials networks and solutions for patient identification and matching, while also aligning their scientific talent and AI SaaS technologies to the research objectives of their academic and biopharma research partners.

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