CureOne™ Announces Partnership With Washington University To Advance Cancer Research

Washington, DC and Saint Louis, MO /PRNewswire/ - CureOne™ (formerly known as MED-C), an independent nonprofit movement dedicated to standardizing next generation sequencing (NGS) and sharing genomic data with matched clinical outcome data, has formed a key partnership with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. CureOne will work with the institution's clinical Next Generation Sequencing laboratory, Genomics and Pathology Services (GPS), to unlock precision medicine and achieve the goals of the N1 Registry™, a revolutionary open-access database that links next-generation sequencing data with information about treatments and clinical outcomes.

CureOne is actively working to make cancer cures possible by uniting and standardizing clinical genomic data. Founded by an oncologist who has worked on the provider and payer side of healthcare, CureOne possesses the perspective and relationships to ensure data standardization drives a precision medicine model that is accepted by all players.

The N1 Registry was created to better understand the genetic basis of malignancy as it relates to physician decisions and patient outcomes, act as a conduit for enrollment in clinical trials, collect information on the growing numbers of patients who receive next-generation sequencing (NGS) testing, and support advances in precision medicine by collecting clinical outcomes data associated with molecular or immunologic testing and treatments.

Washington University School of Medicine is the first academic organization to partner with CureOne, and is a key scientific partner in CureOne's mission, providing the vision and knowledge that come as a result of years of experience in assisting other laboratories and regulatory partners in understanding and building clinical NGS testing for cancer.

"CureOne believes it's time to stop talking about a cure and start harnessing and standardizing the data that makes it possible," said Dane J. Dickson, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Founder of CureOne. "Washington University is helping us make that happen. Its laboratory scientists are on the cutting edge of genomic testing, and they have a deep understanding of the complexity and power of precision medicine. They have been involved in the N1 Registry from the beginning, and their assistance has been crucial to building this registry, in a myriad of ways. Washington University is a premier academic center, and we fully expect that the synergy between our two organizations will continue to make the N1 Registry one of the most rigorous clinico-genomic efforts ever undertaken."

The clinical genomic tests conducted by GPS improve patient care by enabling a personalized approach to medicine. The laboratory's next-generation sequencing tests aim to return actionable genomic information across multiple key disease-relevant genes. The university's experience with clinical genomic sequencing and interpretation make the institution a natural partner for advancing the mission of CureOne.

"We're enthusiastic about partnering with CureOne," said Jon Heusel, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer at GPS and Professor of Pathology and Immunology. "Our laboratory has extensive expertise in clinical genomic sequencing for cancer patients. In collaboration with CureOne, we'll provide high-quality, mutational profiles for patients enrolled in this registry, hopefully across many different cancer types. As the N1 Registry grows, we expect it will include many thousands of cases where the genomic data, patient phenotypic data, and clinical outcomes data are all aligned and high-quality, including rare cancers, which are essential to drawing significant conclusions that can inform precision cancer treatments. The need for this kind of comprehensive data is great and long overdue."

As CureOne works to unite major players across the medical landscape, more and more laboratory and diagnostic partners, including Foundation Medicine and Guardant Health, have come on board to collaborate with CureOne and share data via the N1 Registry. Thanks to years of experience in assisting other laboratories and regulatory partners in building clinical NGS testing for cancer, Washington University will be a key partner in creating a CureOne knowledge base.

About CureOne
CureOne™ (formerly MED-C) is an independent, nonprofit movement that's tearing down the walls that prevent us from advancing precision medicine and ultimately finding the cure for cancer and other chronic diseases. CureOne is uniting stakeholders across the medical landscape and compelling them to share the data. And it is ensuring the information empowers better treatment for "your one" with the N1 Registry™, a revolutionary clinico-genomic outcome database built to standardize the data that will unlock answers for the researchers, laboratories, physicians and pharmaceutical companies working on the frontlines to find a cure.