Presage Biosciences Announces New Pharma Partnership to Evaluate Novel Immuno-Oncology Drug Combinations with CIVO® Technology

SEATTLE, Nov. 30, 2023

Rich Klinghoffer, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Presage, said: "Prior studies have demonstrated that the CIVO platform provides accurate guidance about the therapeutic potential of novel agents in the only context that matters: Fully intact patient tumors. We are very pleased to be working with an innovator like AstraZeneca and supporting their quest to discover, develop, and deliver transformative medicines to patients."

Earlier this month, Presage presented results from a completed Phase 0 study evaluating Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab) alone and in combination with other immune-oncology agents at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2023 Annual Meeting. The study enrolled patients across six US-based cancer centers in both soft tissue sarcoma and head and neck cancer. Study data highlight the importance of evaluating novel therapies in patient tumors and revealed a contradiction between results from in-vivo animal studies versus results in the intact TME.

"For too long, we have put our trust in laboratory models of cancer that do not capture the complexity of the intact TME," said Klinghoffer. "The CIVO technology was developed to address this fundamental issue in cancer drug development and the results from this study demonstrate the true power of our platform - the ability to know, early in development, how a drug impacts patient tumors."

KEYTRUDA® is a registered trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA.

About CIVO