Crown Bioscience, a global drug discovery and development service company, is collaborating with Xstrahl, a designer and manufacturer of X-Ray solutions for radiation biology research.

CrownBio will be implementing the SARRP research platform supplied by Xstrahl, based on Image Guided Micro-Irradiation (IGMI) techniques at its PRECOS facility in Nottingham, U.K. CrownBio will then be a provider of contract research oncology models that provide an irradiation service based on targeted beam radiation therapy, to more closely mimic the clinical situation for patients in the preclinical setting to help improve potential cancer treatment regimens.

CrownBio is a supplier of oncology services, with a global footprint spanning North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The company now offers its customers computerized tomography (CT) imaging with precise radiation delivery. High resolution imaging enables researchers to pinpoint an exact clinical target and deliver a precise radiation dose to in vivoandin vitro models. The platform provides the ability to perform combination studies in patient derived xenograft (PDX) and cell line derived xenograft (CDX) models as well as in vitro, in addition to irradiated subjects for haematological or more fastidious models.

Jean-Pierre Wery, president of CrownBio, said, “Radiation therapy is part of the treatment regimen for the majority of cancer patients worldwide. Providing preclinical models which reflect a patient’s condition should be a potential option for validating the efficacy of novel therapies and potential compounds that make tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy (radiosensitizers) for the treatment of cancer.”

CrownBio has clinically relevant models that reflect the patient situation for each aspect of cancer progression, encompassing pre-cancerous lesions, primary tumors and metastasis. Wery said, “Conventional chemotherapy has been, for many years, the prevalent type of anti-cancer treatment. However its broad-based mechanisms (e.g. DNA alkylating agents) usually lead to severe systemic side effects and it is becoming increasingly important to consider alternatives to chemotherapy, such as radiation.”

The SARRP platform is designed to close the gap between current clinical techniques and radiation biology/radiotherapy. The platform enables researchers to confidently assess the efficacy and efficiency of current treatment regimes and provide new data to the medical community that can help to shape the future of radiation protocols and concurrent therapies.

Adrian Treverton, chief operating officer at Xstrahl Life Sciences, said, “We want to transform the way researchers and clinicians conduct radiation research as well as provide the most advanced platforms for validating the efficacy of novel radiation therapies for cancer and research into normal tissue toxicity.”

Preclinical models in radiation oncology are essential tools for cancer research and therapeutics. CrownBio is looking to develop models that can be used to test radiation therapy, including in vitro as well as in vivo orthotopic xenograft models, which can ultimately be used to develop more effective cancer therapies.