Thermo Fisher Scientific Releases Tumoroid Culture Medium Kit

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BP Elements, BioPharm International's BP Elements, July 2023, Volume 2, Issue 7

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s new tumoroid culture medium kit is designed to help cancer researchers better model the disease.

Thermo Fisher Scientific announced the launch of the Gibco OncePro Tumoroid Culture Medium Kit on June 28, 2023. According to a company press release, the kit is the first commercially available culture medium specifically developed for the expansion of patient-derived tumoroids, or cancer organoids, from multiple cancer indications. In an effort to improve ease of use, the kit includes a scalable, automation-compatible suspension culture method.

According to the release, patient-derived tumoroids hold promise in helping improve clinical trial success rates for cancer researchers seeking to better model disease and predict patient response to therapeutics in vitro; however, their use has been limited due to challenging cell culture requirements and a lack of commercially available media systems, according to the company in the release. The off-the-shelf modular tumoroid culture medium kit is designed to fill this perceived gap in the market.

“Cancer’s unpredictable nature presents a significant scientific and clinical challenge for future discoveries and in delivering life-saving treatments to patients,” said Brian Douglass, vice-president and general manager, Cell Biology, Thermo Fisher Scientific, in the release. “Globally, millions of patients and their families still await a cure for cancer despite the decades of advances in research, diagnostics, and treatments aimed at helping lower cancer mortality. We developed the new OncoPro Tumoroid Culture Medium Kit so the scientific community can take greater advantage of tumoroid models to help bring drug candidates to market faster and more cost-effectively.”

“It is well known that tumor organoids are more predictive of clinical outcomes, adverse events and resistance mechanisms than established 2D cell line counterparts,” said Erik Goka, vice-president, Biology, Revere Pharmaceuticals, in the release. “The OncoPro Tumoroid Culture Medium Kit allows us to seamlessly integrate tumoroids into our research and drug discovery processes. With the tumoroid media system, we can propagate all our organoid models in the same culture medium system irrespective of the tissue of origin. This media system has been instrumental in allowing us to bring tumor organoids into our lab for everyday use.”

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In addition to the kit, Thermo Fisher Scientific offers services in tumoroid assay development to support outsourced screening and characterization. Customers may also access seven unique OncoProtumoroid cell lines, representing four different cancer indications including colorectal, lung, endometrial, and breast.

Source: Thermo Fisher Scientific