CureMatch Uses Analytics to Rank Best Options for Cancer Treatment

CureMatch, a San Diego-based healthtech startup, says today it has created a Web-based platform that uses analytic software to help doctors sort through what can be a bewildering array of cancer treatment options.

Selecting the right combination of drugs to treat a particular cancer can be one of the biggest challenges that doctors face, according to CureMatch CEO Blaise Barrelet.

The startup uses the results of tumor DNA sequencing technology provided by companies like Foundation Medicine of Cambridge, MA, and Guardant Health, based in Redwood City, CA. Such companies typically provide cancer doctors with some guidance, but Barrelet said the recommended drug therapies still amount to a “one size fits all” approach that is usually based on a single mutation as driving the cancer.

CureMatch says its software takes that process a step further by using analytic software to rank various combinations of cancer drugs that match with multiple specific tumor gene mutations.

The company says its software combs through millions of possible drug combinations, comparing a patient’s genetic profile with data from clinical trials, publications, and drug interactions to identify optimal treatment regimens.

CureMatch says its decision support software even incorporates transcriptomic and proteomic data. With roughly 300 cancer drugs approved by the FDA, Barrelet said there are about 4.5 million possible treatment combinations.

“Ideally, we want to provide knowledge and insights to physicians as things get more and more complicated,” said Barrelet, a cancer survivor and investor who helped found CureMatch with technology developed at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. The software was initially developed by Razelle Kurzrock, the center’s senior deputy director (and San Diego Xconomist), and Igor Tsigelny, a neuroscientist and expert in structural biology at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

Barrelet, who founded the San Diego Web analytics company WebSideStory in 1996, said he learned of the technology after he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia about four years ago.

Blaise Barrelet Analytics Ventures
Blaise Barrelet

While next-generation sequencing has opened the way for more precise or “personalized” medicine by matching diseases with specific treatment regimens, CureMatch says the lack of fast and accurate ways to interpret genetic data has limited its adoption. According to Barrelet, only about 2 percent of cancer patients get their tumors sequenced.

Barrelet said he has provided undisclosed seed funding for CureMatch as an angel investor and through Analytics Ventures, an early stage investment firm he co-founded. The company now has 13 employees, and Barrelet said he’s looking to raise more capital.

CureMatch says cancer doctors can use its ranking of best-matched combination therapy options to tailor treatment specifically for individual patients. Studies have shown that this approach has resulted in higher response and survival rates than traditional chemotherapy or targeted monotherapies, according to the company.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.