WINTHERapeutics: development of a systems biology method to predict efficacy of cancer drugs to optimize individualized therapeutic decision and improve clinical outcome for cancer patients.

Relevance: WINTHER project focuses on the development and validation, in 24 months, of industry supported new tools and computational methods, to predict efficacy of drugs in cancer patients
Current medical needs: Selection of cancer targeted therapies based on molecular abnormalities (mutations /amplifications/ translocations) benefit today only to 10-40% of patients. For the remaining majority, therapeutic decision is still based according to decade-old protocols with limited efficacy. Drug development depends on efficiency of clinical trials, with a staggering 95% failure rate

The objective: WINTHER proposes a fundamental change in trial design, through:
1. investigation of the tumour simultaneously with the normal matched tissue;
2. development of a comprehensive database and genomic based algorithms and computational tools to predict the efficacy of drugs at individual level, in all patients, irrespective of cancer type;
3. increase efficacy of therapeutics and clinical outcome;

Impact: Optimization of the portfolio of existing drugs and new compounds in clinical trials by matching the right drug to the right patient. In particular, it permits to avoid use of expensive drugs for patients that would not benefit from such treatments. WINTHER will made available to community as a clinically validated industry tool (website, database and algorithms) to assist clinicians in the analysis of genomic information based on the comparison of tumour and matched normal tissue and to increase the number of the patients to benefit from individualized rational selection of therapies.