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Our Winter 2023 newsletter is now available here

The Pear Bio Platform

Pear Bio have developed a novel Functional Precision Medicine platform that integrates biology and Artificial Intelligence to allow for rapid assessment of treatment efficacy in cancer patients, as well as supporting drug development.

We use a fresh biopsy from the patient, which we grow in a novel, tumor-specific hydrogel matrix. The cells from the biopsy are split into 12+ equal groups, and cultured in parallel organ-on-a-chips. 2 are used as a control while the others are dosed with different combinations of anti-cancer treatments. We image cells on days 0,1,2 and 3, and then use those images to measure live and dead cell counts, microtumor size and cell migration/invasion. The nature of the platform lets us test multiple drugs and drug combinations in parallel, and provides a readout of relative drug effectiveness for individual patient samples within a week of receiving the biopsy.

Figure 1. The Pear Bio Platform has been tested across 8 types of solid primary tumors: Breast, Colorectal, Gastic, Liver, Lung, Ovarian, Pancreatic and Kidney Cancers (Please see our AACR poster for more information)

Figure 2a. Primary breast cancer spheroids imaged using confocal microscopy to assess the effect of treatment (dashed line box = zoom area below image)

Figure 2b. Primary breast cancer spheroids are imaged to assess the effect of doxorubicin treatment at different dosages

We have successfully grown and treated 8 different cancer types, and are initially focusing on patients with breast and kidney cancer, with further tumor types coming later this year. This development work is being conducted in the context of multiple clinical trials with NHS hospitals from across London and beyond. Patients who are interested in taking part in these trials should contact their local oncology team to ask to be referred to the nearest trial site.

Figure 3. Patient Cohort. Demographics of indications and patient samples used in the Pear Bio Platform (as of May 27, 2022)

June 2022

PEAR-TNBC recruits first patient:

We are delighted to announce that we have recruited our first breast cancer patient to the PEAR-TNBC trial. The patient underwent a biopsy last week at St. Bartholomew's NHS Trust, and we have been busy culturing and treating the breast cancer cells in the lab.

The Pear Bio Platform allows us to grow and treat multiple microtumors in parallel so that we can determine which drugs are likely to be effective. Unlike other tests that measure a biomarker, we directly test different drugs in parallel on an individual patient tumor sample.

PEAR-TNBC is a multi-centre, observational study for patients with newly diagnosed Triple Negative Breast Cancer who are about to start chemotherapy as their first treatment (“neoadjuvant chemotherapy”). Patients receive standard treatment, and we treat the tumor samples in the lab with the same chemotherapy as the treating team has chosen to use. The primary endpoint of the trial is to see how accurately the patient responses to treatment can be predicted by the Pear Bio test

2 cores from 1st PEAR-TNBC patient (82.8 mg in total sample weight)

Changes in cancer cells are observed by microscopy within days after treatment

PEAR-TNBC is currently open at St. Bartholomew’s, and will open in other centers across the UK in 2022 to recruit 30 patients with TNBC. We have a range of trials for other cancer types under active development.