St. Joseph Hospital Joins Caris Life Sciences' Precision Oncology Alliance

St. Joseph Hospital's Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment becomes member of Caris' collaborative network dedicated to making cancer treatment more precise and effective

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Caris Life Sciences

Oct 30, 2019, 06:30 ET

IRVING, Texas and ORANGE, Calif., Oct. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Caris Life Sciences®, a leading innovator in molecular science focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine, announced today that St. Joseph Hospital has become the 30^th member of its Precision Oncology Alliance™. The Alliance is a collaborative network of leading cancer centers that demonstrates a commitment to precision medicine. These centers work together toward a common goal, to advance tumor profiling and establish standards of care for molecular testing in oncology.

The Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment at St. Joseph Hospital is the first of its kind in Orange County, Calif., and offers access to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and clinical trials. St. Joseph Hospital is a values-based Catholic health care provider within the Providence St. Joseph Health system, the third largest non-profit health system in the U.S. St. Joseph Hospital is building its precision medicine program with the goal of standardizing molecular profiling for people living with cancer who utilize its health services.

"St. Joseph Hospital stands out among the leading cancer centers by delivering a broad range of patient services at every step along the cancer journey," said Brian J. Brille, Vice Chairman of Caris Life Sciences. "The St. Joseph team and their breadth of experience brings valuable contributions to the Precision Oncology Alliance as we look to further integrate molecular testing into cancer care and treatment."

Through the Precision Oncology Alliance – powered by Caris – St. Joseph Hospital will partner with other notable cancer centers and academic institutions to broaden patient access to precision cancer care, validate Caris' Next Generation Profiling™ offerings and establish evidence-based standards for tumor profiling and molecular testing in oncology. By leveraging the comprehensive genomic and proteomic tumor profiling services available through the Caris Molecular Intelligence® platform, clinicians from St. Joseph Health-affiliated hospitals will be able to prioritize therapeutic options and determine which clinical trial opportunities may benefit their patients. Additionally, St. Joseph Hospital medical staff will partner with other Alliance members to contribute to and publish data and advance collaborative clinical trials.

"St. Joseph Hospital is nationally recognized for clinical excellence and superior, compassionate patient care. This includes the more than 2600 people living with or at risk of a cancer diagnosis we serve each year at The Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment," said board certified medical oncologist and hematologist, Timothy Byun, M.D. "It is critical that these patients have access to the most advanced services that provide them with the best care possible, and our deep focus on molecular profiling is an important step in helping our oncologists make decisions that can alter the course of disease. Our collaboration with Caris Life Sciences and the Precision Oncology Alliance will accelerate these efforts and progress what is possible through precision medicine."

The Precision Oncology Alliance comprises 30 academic, hospital and community-based cancer institutions, including eight National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

"End-to-end cancer care and leading-edge clinical research are hallmarks of St. Joseph Hospital, and we welcome them to the Precision Oncology Alliance as we continue to change the way the disease is managed through precision medicine," said W. Michael Korn, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Caris Life Sciences. "For patients across St. Joseph Hospital, this dedication to advancing the science of cancer care is changing expectations for what's possible, and the Alliance will benefit from the important work they are doing."

Find out more about the Precision Oncology Alliance, powered by Caris, at www.carislifesciences.com/precision-oncology-alliance.

About Caris Life Sciences
Caris Life Sciences® is a leading innovator in molecular science focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine through quality and innovation. The company's suite of market-leading molecular profiling offerings assesses DNA, RNA and proteins to reveal a molecular blueprint that helps physicians and cancer patients make more precise and personalized treatment decisions.

Caris is also advancing precision medicine with Next Generation Profiling™ that combines its innovative service offerings, Caris Molecular Intelligence® and ADAPT Biotargeting System™, with its proprietary artificial intelligence analytics engine, DEAN™, to analyze the whole exome, whole transcriptome and complete cancer proteome. This information, coupled with mature clinical outcomes on thousands of patients, provides unmatched molecular solutions for patients, physicians, payers and biopharmaceutical organizations.

Whole transcriptome sequencing with MI Transcriptome provides the most comprehensive and unique RNA analysis available on the market and covers all 22,000 genes, with an average of 60 million reads per patient, to deliver extremely broad coverage and high resolution into the dynamic nature of the transcriptome. Assessing the whole transcriptome allows us to dig deeper into the RNA universe to uncover and detect fusions, splice variants, and expression changes that provide oncologists with more insight and actionable information when determining treatment plans for patients.

Caris Pharmatech, a pioneer of the original Just-In-Time research system with the largest research-ready oncology network is changing the paradigm from the traditional physician outreach model to a real-time approach where patient identification is completed at the lab and the physician is informed so that the patient can be enrolled days earlier, and remain in the local physician's care, without having to travel to a large central trial site. This fundamentally redefines how pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies identify and rapidly enroll patients in precision oncology trials by combining Caris' highest quality industry leading large-scale molecular profiling services with Pharmatech's on-demand site activation and patient enrollment system.

Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Caris Life Sciences offers services throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and other international markets. To learn more, please visit www.CarisLifeSciences.com or follow us on Twitter (@CarisLS).

About St. Joseph Hospital
St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, California is a nationally recognized, 463-bed, not-for-profit Catholic hospital that was founded in 1929 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. Fully accredited by The Joint Commission and designated as a Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, St. Joseph Hospital's reputation for clinical excellence and compassionate, family-centered care draws patients from all over the United States. This is one reason why St. Joseph Hospital was named one of the top hospitals in the Los Angeles/Orange County area by U.S. News & World Report for seven years in a row. With a highly recognized medical staff of over 1,000 physicians and more than 3,100 employees, St. Joseph Hospital is home to more than 75 specialty programs, including The Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment, the Heart and Vascular Center, and a nationally acclaimed orthopedics program that has been ranked among the top 50 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. St. Joseph Hospital is part of Providence St. Joseph Health, a health system of 119,000 caregivers serving in 51 hospitals, more than 800 clinics and a comprehensive range of services across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington. For more information visit www.sjo.org.