- American
Cancer Society annual report shows largest single-year drop in cancer
deaths ever reported
- Doctors
attribute precision medicine with playing significant role in decline
- POAI
leading player in precision medicine, initiated groundbreaking Cancer
Quest 2020 project
A new American Cancer Society report bodes well for Predictive Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ: POAI), a company focused
on applying artificial intelligence to help equip players in personalized
medicine and drug discovery. American Cancer Society’s annual ‘Facts &
Figures 2020’ report shows the largest single-year drop in cancer deaths ever
reported (http://ibn.fm/1d3lE).
The 2.2% drop occurred from 2016 to 2017, the most recent year for which
complete data is available.
The report notes that the decline in deaths from lung cancer
drove the record drop, and that the decline was driven in large part by
precision medicine. While lung cancer is still the leading cause of cancer
death, deaths from lung cancer have declined by 51% from 1990 to 2017 among men
and 26% from 2002 to 2017 among women. In response to the report, doctors at
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer in Buffalo, New York, attribute precision
medicine with playing a significant role in the decline (http://ibn.fm/14kPm).
Roswell Park’s Dr. Carl Morrison described the impact that
precision medicine has had on the health industry’s fight against cancer. For
example, there are at least 10 to 15 subtypes of lung cancers that doctors can
treat now, which patients couldn’t receive treatment for previously. “Ten years
ago, you stopped at that diagnosis,” Morrison said in an article. “Today you
don’t. No longer can you just use the word lung cancer. You have to clarify
what types of lung cancer it is, and then when you know what type of lung
cancer it is, you know what specific therapy that you can treat that lung
cancer with and that is in essence, precision medicine.”
As precision medicine continues to be embraced by the health
community, Predictive Oncology’s database shows potential to fill a critical
void: equipping oncological and pharmaceutical industries with tools to help
fight ovarian cancer – a notoriously fast-moving and aggressive cancer type.
Last year, POAI initiated its Cancer Quest 2020 project, which includes
sequencing ovarian cancers and building the largest ovarian cancer multi-omic
database in the world. Through this project, the company hopes to provide the
pharmaceutical industry critical tools to help speed up the development of new
drugs and provide more personalized and effective therapeutic choices.
Predictive Oncology’s subsidiary, Helomics, is playing a key
role in the groundbreaking project. Helomics currently has an estimated 150,000
cases on its molecular information platform – 38,000 of which are specific to
ovarian cancer. This invaluable scientific asset positions POAI as a leader in
providing the critical molecular information needed for more effective patient
treatments and new drug discovery in a much timelier manner than others in the
precision-medicine space.
As part of the Cancer Quest 2020 project, Predictive
Oncology has also signed a collaborative agreement with the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)-Magee Women’s Hospital to establish a data-
and artificial-intelligence-driven approach to treating ovarian cancer. Based
on the agreement, the partnership is designed to validate the significant value
of using AI-powered decision-making for identifying specific treatments on
specific genotypes to help oncologists predict clinical outcomes for ovarian
cancer patients.
Helomics has begun sequencing retrospective ovarian
cancer cases from the UPMC-Magee collaboration and analyzing the mutations in
the tumor (genome) and the expression of genes (transcriptome) in order to
build a comprehensive multi-omic picture of the tumor. That information can
then be brought together with Helomics’ data set of drug-response profiles to
build an AI-driven predictive model of ovarian cancer. This disruptive work is
designed to lead to continued drops in cancer deaths of all types.
Predictive Oncology began as a joint venture between Skyline
Medical, another of POIA’s subsidiaries, and Helomics. The company is ideally
positioned to harness the power of artificial intelligence and work with the
pharmaceutical, diagnostic and biotech industries to develop highly
customizable assessment methods for cancer patients.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Predictive-Oncology.com
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates
relating to POAI are available in the company’s newsroom at http://ibn.fm/POAI
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