Oncode’s Industry Engagement Programme takes a proactive approach to building strong relationships and identifying opportunities for collaboration with biotech and pharma companies. Through it, we continuously identify opportunities to merge Oncode’s basic oncology expertise with a company’s translational and clinical development expertise.  
 
In 2019, Oncode identified and profiled 93 oncology focused SMEs operating in the Netherlands and contacted 75 of them to identify opportunities for collaboration. In partnership with HollandBIO, we organized the Biotech Wednesday event, which focused on cell therapy and brought together over 160 representatives from academia, life-science companies, clinicians and other relevant stakeholders.  
 
These activities helped to raise awareness of Oncode within industry and frequently led to the exchange of more specific information to identify areas of interest, respective needs and capabilities. Subsequent interactions between Oncode Investigators and companies identified valuable collaboration opportunities.  
 
Sarah Derks, Amsterdam UMC: “[…] being part of the Dutch biotech event and giving a talk about the gap between clinic and laboratory (and biotech), resulted in a couple of meetings with biotech companies that might end in new collaborations. As a clinician, I would never have been part of these meetings otherwise.” 

To assist the Oncode community in reaching its goals, we have built a highly skilled team of programme managers, business developers and support staff. We have also established links with external experts in areas where more detailed in-depth knowledge is required - for example, in company creation and drug development.

In 2019, the Oncode Exploratory Development Expert Support (OEDES) Team, comprising experts in the field of early-stage drug development, assumed its official role in Oncode’s Clinical Proof-of-Concept Programme of co-reviewing CPoC proposals. As part of this review process, each applicant receives tailored advice and guidance during an OEDES workshop about how to prepare their full proposal. Eight OEDES workshops took place in 2019. This new procedure, in particular the support from the OEDES team, was well received by applicants.

“The OEDES team was instrumental in the preparation of a clinical development plan for our TEIPP immunotherapy platform. It changed the way of thinking - with regard, for instance, to the Target product profile, unmet need, knowledge gaps, key drivers/stoppers, and go and no-go’s, as well as the way of working - by advising to take a more agile approach through fast forwarding lead epitopes and next epitopes in parallel studies.”  Sjoerd van den Burg, LUMC

To assist in company creation and related activities, we have taken steps to include entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs) in our team of experts. We identified our first two EIRs - Allard Kaptein and Dr. Markwin Velders - in December 2019. Both of these EIRs bring over 25 years of experience in industry-based drug development, research, regulatory approval and financing. They will take up their roles in early 2020.

Given the increased cost of care, the sustainability of today’s healthcare systems is under extreme pressure. Oncode is therefore mindful of the need for new innovations in cancer therapy to be made available to patients at an affordable price. One of the ways Oncode is addressing this is through implementation of the Socially Responsible Licensing principles established by the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU). Oncode participated in the relevant NFU working group and was one of the first institutes to formally endorse these principles. We are currently implementing them to make sure that new scientific insights are translated into novel therapies for patients in a responsible way.

To support the goal of making healthcare more affordable, Oncode also set up a dedicated call with ZonMw specifically to fund projects with an affordable health care focus. Medical oncologist Henk Verheul and physician-researcher Sophie Gerritse (Radboud University Medical Center), together with Oncode Investigator Jan Paul Medema (Amsterdam University Medical Center), were awarded an €800k grant to conduct a clinical study into a new treatment with the existing anti-cancer drug sunitinib. 

Sophie Gerritse, Radboudumc, explains: “By demonstrating superior outcome of our new treatment strategy for patients with metastatic colorectal carcinoma through extended survival and increased quality of life, we aim to repurpose this soon to be off-patent drug, thereby enabling both higher quality and more affordable healthcare. Moreover, our project includes identification and assessment of potential (new) biomarkers for improved colorectal carcinoma diagnostics and treatment planning based on previous work on classifying colorectal cancer in different subtypes based on underlying biology. This subtype classification has the potential to be an inexpensive biomarker assay for identifying responders in clinical practice.”

With its focused valorization strategy, Oncode generates societal and economic impact based on the findings of our basic research labs. One of the ways we do this is by stimulating the creation of new ventures. Via the Oncode Oncology Bridge Fund we support the translation of ideas originating in the Oncode community into market-ready investment opportunities. These originating ideas can include new therapeutic interventions, diagnostic screening tools and services, biomarkers, research tools, or services that will benefit cancer patients or cancer research in general.

In 2019, the Oncode Oncology Bridge Fund reviewed 14 potential investment opportunities. Ten are still in the ‘ideation’ stage of development and we are working with the Valorization Team, our entrepreneurs-in-residence and external consultants to shape these into investable opportunities. In 2019, we also performed due diligence on four investment opportunities and invested in two technology service providers (Single Cell Discoveries B.V. and Cyclomics B.V.). We are currently in negotiation with another one. In total, we have invested €140k through convertible debentures.

Single Cell Discoveries B.V.
Single Cell Discoveries is a spin-off from the single-cell core facility at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht. It is a one-stop-shop for single-cell sequencing as a service.  Mauro Muraro and Judith Vivié, two founders of the company, gained extensive experience with single-cell sequencing in the lab of Oncode Investigator Alexander van Oudenaarden and have set up this service-driven company based on technology developed in his lab.

Cyclomics B.V.
Cyclomics is a Dutch startup company founded in 2018 by scientists from the University Medical Center Utrecht. One of these founders is Oncode Investigator Jeroen de Ridder. Cyclomics’ ambition is to transform cancer care by enabling faster and more reliable diagnoses, particularly in the context of cancer recurrence, thanks to its proprietary circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) detection technology.

The Oncode Technology Development Fund (TechDev Fund) is designed to increase the chances of licensing out inventions originating from the Oncode community or translating them into marketable products and services. The TechDev Fund is specifically employed to advance projects by funding additional experiments and activities needed to generate crucial data and demonstrate proof-of-concept - for example, drug target validation, high throughput screening, hit-to-lead development, medicinal chemistry, toxicological studies or Health Technology Assessments. At the preclinical stage, these experiments/activities can accelerate interest from industry partners and increase the chances of successfully licensing or translating inventions.

A recent example of how the TechDev Fund accelerated an Oncode project is the funding of an early Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for a drug repurposing project. An HTA is an assessment of the costs of a new innovation (therapy or technology) versus its benefits to patients’ lives and broader society. It involves a cost-effectiveness analysis in which cost differences and outcomes between new and existing technologies are compared. Organizational, ethical and legal issues are also taken into account. With the rising costs of cancer research and treatment, HTA has become increasingly important for regulatory bodies and policy makers, and is widely used by organisations such as the WHO, NHS (UK), ZonMw and the BioPharma industry. In most cases, an HTA is only performed after clinical evaluation of a proposed treatment, which means that if the HTA result is negative, a significant amount of R&D money will already have been spent and it will be too late to change course.

Oncode implements so-called ‘early HTA’ to support Clinical Proof-of-Concept projects at the preclinical stage.  This early HTA serves to support go/no-go decisions regarding product development and can inform innovators about the ‘bigger picture’ in terms of the likely impact their innovation will have on society. It can also be a useful tool for anticipating future developments, so that we can steer research groups towards cost-effective innovations. Potential benefits could include a more efficient drug/technology development phase, better targeted trials, more successful coverage submissions, and earlier access to solutions for patients.
 
By way of example, when Oncode Investigator Hans Bos submitted an application for the Clinical Proof-of-Concept Fund, an HTA on his proposed therapeutic intervention revealed that while the technical aspects met the required criteria, the proposed therapy would not meet the cost-effectiveness ratio needed for adoption or reimbursement by health providers. However, when reviewing the results, it became clear that by exchanging one of the drugs with an equally effective drug and changing the dosing schedule, the result of a revised HTA analysis would meet the cost-effectiveness criterion and therefore be viewed positively by health providers. Based on the revised HTA analysis, the Clinical Proof-of-Concept review committee responded positively and have provided funds for a phase I and phase II clinical trial, with the phase I trial starting in the summer of 2020.

This example pulls together all three funding mechanisms in the Valorization Team’s armoury: the Clinical Proof-of-Concept Fund to fund the trial, the Technology Development Fund to fund the HTA, and the Oncode Base Fund to purchase the drugs needed for the clinical trials. In addition, the Valorization Team supported the development of a valorization plan and patent protection filing in order to engage with stakeholders in the event of positive trial results.