Xentech specializes in efficacy studies conducted in vivo on human tumor xenografts established directly from patients, without intermediary cell culture. We maintain a large collection of tumors growing subcutaneously onto immunodeficient mice for compound testing.

Because they are clinically relevant and therefore allow predictive preclinical assays, there is a major advantage in using these models as compared to conventional tumor cell line xenografts used by most CROs in the field.

The successful clinical development of novel molecular targeted agents requires the identification of sensitive tumor subsets and of response biomarkers to select potentially responder patients. Efficacy studies conducted in our tumor panels offer the opportunity to identify sensitive tumor types and response markers by comparative molecular profiling of responder and non-responder tumors. Such response markers may help in the design of clinical trials and accelerate as well as lower the costs of clinical development.

Our tumor collection is regularly characterized by genomic and proteomic profiling, which permits response marker analyses and target expression studies to select suitable tumor models for your compounds.

In addition to in vivo efficacy assays, we are currently developing several complementary technologies to broaden the scope of our services. These include in vitro clonogenic and organotypic drug screening assays using tumor xenografts as a tissue source and bioluminescence imaging for orthotopic and metastatic tumor tracking.