LEMONAID takes on the challenge of developing a new drug against Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) tumors to ultimately reduce drug resistance and relapse potential for patients. InnoSer supports this ambition by its expertise in combined in-vitro and in-vivo disease models. Specifically, InnoSer will develop relevant 3D organoid platforms as well as new transgenic mice, making these InnoSer’s first screening-models for liquid tumors. They are to be meticulously characterized and offered on a service basis to help accelerate drug screening processes.

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1 in every 3 people is diagnosed with cancer. For many cancers, treatments are either ineffective or can cause aggressive recurrence. This is especially the case for Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL). More than 50,000 new DLBCL cases are recorded globally each year. Over 40% of patients relapse after treatment and are left with life expectancies of 6 months.

In an attempt to tackle this problem InnoSer is joining powers with an international group of institutions in the scope of the Eurostars funded project LEMONAID. The main objective of LEMONAID is to deliver a new class of drugs that aim to prevent cancer relapse.

InnoSer will contribute to the project by developing patient-derived lymphoma organoids and relevant transgenic mice, and by assessing the efficacy, pharmacokinetics and preliminary toxicology of the new drugs.

Current statistics indicate that for cancer drugs, only 3.4% of drugs make it from Phase 1 trials to market approval. A major challenge is developing relevant and translatable biological models that are a proxy for human disease. Therefore, InnoSer considers it an ongoing mission to ensure that the effects of the compounds developed using cell and animal models can be replicated in human patients. Lymphoma organoid model provides a particularly new form of a 3D model. It currently is the closest representation for humans and will benefit drug development by being a more translatable model than traditional cell-based assays. With the development of this novel platform for DLBCL, InnoSer adds liquid tumor models to its current portfolio of those based on solid tumors.