Manhasset and Cold Spring Harbor, NY — Northwell Health today announced a collaboration with Indivumed to speed the advance of precision cancer research.
As New York State’s largest health care provider, Northwell Health diagnoses and treats 19,000 new cancer patients each year. Indivumed, GmbH is a Germany-based oncology research company working to individualize anti-cancer medical therapies. Together they will greatly expand cancer biobanking activities within Northwell Health that will be used to help develop anti-tumor drugs and personalized medicine approaches.
This collaboration will provide key infrastructure for cancer research within Northwell Health, and will substantially enhance Northwell Health’s affiliation with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), announced in 2015. Investigators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have shaped contemporary biomedical research in many areas, including cancer.
“Attaining individualized cancer diagnosis and treatment for every patient based on reliable clinical data and molecularly intact biospecimens is our goal,” said Hartmut Juhl, M.D., founder and CEO of Indivumed and a cancer researcher. “Our tool for achieving this goal is the establishment of a unique global cancer database using molecular information from tissues collected under stringent protocols. Northwell Health brings a special blend of a strong clinical trial program within the largest hospital network in New York State. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a clear research leader in this field. By building this new biobank together, we can make a dramatic difference in genetic-based precision medicine.”
Under an initial three-year agreement, Northwell Health will collect lung, breast, colorectal, pancreatic and other cancer tissues for research and storage. Initially, tissue will be collected at three Northwell Health hospitals—North Shore University Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Lenox Hill Hospital—with other hospitals joining the program later. Northwell Health cancer patients will have the opportunity to consent to having extra cancer tissue that was removed in the normal course of their treatment included in the biobank for research.
“This agreement is important on several fronts,” said James Crawford, M.D., Ph.D., executive director and senior vice president of laboratory services at Northwell Health and chair of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. “Creating a system-wide approach to biobanking of human cancer tissues expands our ability to conduct metabolic, as well as gene-based, cancer treatment research. It will also facilitate patients being able to participate in and potentially benefit from cutting-edge clinical research without disrupting their routine treatment.”
Written by: Communications Department | publicaffairs@cshl.edu | 516-367-8455
About Northwell Health
Northwell Health is New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer, with 21 hospitals and over 550 outpatient facilities. We care for more than two million people annually in the metro New York area and beyond, thanks to philanthropic support from our communities. Our 61,000 employees–15,000+ nurses and nearly 3,400 physicians, including nearly 2,700 members of Northwell Health Physician Partners—are working to change health care for the better. We’re making breakthroughs in medicine at the Feinstein Institute. We’re training the next generation of medical professionals at the visionary Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine and the School of Graduate Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. And we offer health insurance through CareConnect. For information on our more than 100 medical specialties, visit Northwell.edu.
About Indivumed GmbH
INDIVUMED an ISO certified global oncology research company based in Hamburg, Germany, has established the world’s leading Cancer Database and biobank, retaining unique patterns of biomolecules such as RNA, DNA, and proteins as they existed in the human body. For more information, please visit www.indivumed.com.