Caris Life Sciences Launches Caris Target Now™ Select for NSCLC, Melanoma, and Cancers of the Breast, Colon, and Ovary

- Enhanced Molecular Profiling Service Now Includes More Biomarker Analysis Options, Faster Turnaround Time, and Clinical Trial Matching

IRVING, Texas, June 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/-- Caris Life Sciences®, a leading biosciences company focused on enabling precise and personalized healthcare through molecular profiling and blood-based diagnostic services, today announced the launch of Caris Target Now™ Select, an advanced, evidence-based molecular profiling service for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), melanoma, and cancers of the breast, colon and ovary. In addition, the company has enhanced the original Caris Target Now comprehensive molecular profiling service offering for all solid tumors.

"This latest effort by Caris is another significant step in what I call health improvement, while at the same time fulfilling on the promise of personalized medicine," said David D. Halbert, Chairman and CEO, Caris Life Sciences. "With these enhancements, we believe we can prolong the lives of patients and improve outcomes, while also lowering costs to the healthcare system."

Caris Target Now Select incorporates updated, evidence-based technology platforms to determine the genomic information unique to a patient's tumor based on the presence of relevant biomarkers. In addition to providing focused biomarker profiles designed for earlier-stage cancer patients, it offers the advantages of known "on-Compendium-only" drug associations, faster turnaround time, the capability to derive meaningful results from smaller tissue samples, up to 30 reported biomarkers per patient (depending on tumor type), and – for the first time – Clinical Trials Connector™, a service that enables biomarker-specific clinical trial matching.

"Caris Target Now Select is an important new tool to assist physicians in choosing among standard drug choices earlier in the course of treatment, where molecular profiling can have the largest benefit to patient care," said Tom Spalding, Oncology Senior Vice President and Group Head, Caris Life Sciences. "In addition, the new Clinical Trials Connector uncovers even more possibilities by linking patients to open and enrolling clinical trials based upon their individual biomarker status."

Using the strongest clinical evidence, Caris Target Now Select highlights known therapeutic associations with appropriate, tumor-specific treatments for the five target tumor types, as identified in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Drug & Biologics Compendium™[1].  In addition, the newly enhanced version of Caris' original molecular profiling service (now renamed Caris Target Now Comprehensive) provides both on- and off-Compendium therapeutic associations for all solid tumors, across a wide range of evidence.

"Caris Target Now Select is an evidence-based molecular profiling service that can help both earlier-stage and later-stage cancer patients, as it employs the most relevant biomarkers and technologies to help decode a patient's tumor," said Sandeep Reddy, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Senior Medical Director at Caris. "This service allows physicians to augment their years of experience with advanced theranostic resources, further personalizing cancer care based on the expression status of specific biomarkers."

Through analysis with multiple, highly integrated technology platforms such as immunohistochemistry (IHC), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and DNA sequencing, both the Caris Target Now Select and Comprehensive services provide vital information that may be useful to oncologists in individualizing therapeutic regimens for cancer patients. By utilizing the most relevant, evidence-based molecular profiling technologies to determine the biomarkers unique to a patient's tumor, and performing an extensive review of clinical literature correlating biomarkers to drug response, Caris Target Now Select can help illuminate the benefit (or lack thereof) of specific agents, and may reveal appropriate treatments not previously considered.

Both services can be requested for cancer patients by physicians seeking to utilize biomarker analysis to inform therapeutic decision-making. For more information, visit www.caristargetnow.com.

About Caris Life Sciences

Caris Life Sciences is a leading biosciences company focused on developing and delivering innovative molecular diagnostic, prognostic, and theranostic services. The company's evidence-based molecular profiling service, Caris Target Now™, matches molecular data generated from a patient's tumor with biomarker/drug associations derived from the world's leading clinical cancer literature. Caris Target Now uses the most advanced and clinically relevant technologies to provide physicians with information to aid in the selection of personalized cancer treatments more likely to work for each patient. Caris is also developing a series of blood tests based on the company's patented Carisome™ platform — a proprietary, blood-based testing technology for diagnosis, prognosis, and theranosis of cancer and other complex diseases. Through the precise and personalized information provided by technologies like Caris Target Now and Carisome, the company believes that the quality of healthcare can be dramatically improved, while also significantly reducing costs. Headquartered in the Dallas metroplex, Caris Life Sciences offers services throughout the United States, Europe, and other international markets. To learn more, please visit www.carislifesciences.com or www.caristargetnow.com.

[1] About the NCCN Drugs & Biologics Compendium (NCCN Compendium™). Fort Washington, PA: National Comprehensive Cancer Network; 2012. Available at: http://www.nccn.org/professionals/drug_compendium/content/about.asp.  Accessed May 2, 2012.