OncoMed Strategy for Novel Therapeutics

Our drug development approach is focused on targeting tumor initiating cells. We utilize tumor models created with human primary tumor xenografts. These proprietary models, developed under intellectual property licensed exclusively to OncoMed, are much more representative of human tumors than the cell line approach relied upon in traditional cancer research. Candidate therapeutics active against these primary human tumor xenografts are much more likely to also be effective against these tumors in the clinic. The ability to measure and purify tumor initiating cells has enabled OncoMed to assess the importance of specific target proteins implicated in human cancer and associated with biological pathways that regulate stem cell biology. OncoMed has generated panels of monoclonal antibodies against many key signaling molecules expressed in tumor initiating cells and screened these antibodies for activity against multiple types of human tumors. Further, we have utilized limiting dilution assays, in which tumor cells are serially transplanted to calculate tumor initiating cell frequency, to measure the ability of OncoMed’s antibodies to reduce or eliminate tumor initiating cells. In contrast, conventional cancer therapeutics are unable to accomplish this, and, in many cases, actually increase the percentage of tumorigenic cells after treatment.