COLUMBUS, Ohio & ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–New Mexico Cancer Center (NMCC) and Deep Lens today announced a strategic partnership that will integrate artificial intelligence (AI)-based clinical trial screening and enrollment solution, VIPER™, into the NMCC network. NMCC is one of the largest cancer centers in the state and is run by CEO Barbara L. McAneny, M.D., former president of the American Medical Association and current board member of the Community Oncology Alliance. NMCC is also a member of the National Cancer Care Alliance, a national organization that includes more than 260 oncologists across 100 sites. VIPER uses proprietary, cloud-based technology to facilitate, triage and accelerate the clinical trial recruitment process. Through this collaboration, NMCC will be able to more effectively identify, screen and match oncology patients to precision-based clinical trials.
“The large majority of cancer patients are diagnosed and treated in community oncology settings, making it critical to expand clinical trial offerings at these locations to help more patients receive improved access to care,” said Barbara L. McAneny, M.D., founder and CEO of NMCC. “VIPER is designed to help community oncology centers, like NMCC, attract more precision medicine trials as well as streamline the patient recruitment and enrollment process. This will ultimately result in more patients receiving the opportunity to access emerging new medicines and the acceleration of drug discovery and development.”
It is estimated that more than 15,000 oncology clinical trials are actively recruiting patients; however, patient participation in these trials is often as low as three percent. Limited site capacity and resources play a role in the challenge to recruit and enroll, as well as low patient engagement. All of these challenges have been magnified by the current global pandemic. VIPER automates the clinical trial screening process and seamlessly matches patients — at the time of diagnosis — to appropriate trials through the ingestion and analysis of customized genomic data, electronic medical records and pathology data.
“The team at NMCC is extremely dedicated to ensuring the people of New Mexico have every opportunity for superior care, resources and access to innovative therapies. They were the first to bring cancer care to the Western part of the state — including Navajo Nation — which has removed barriers for care in this area and resulted in improved patient outcomes,” said Greg Andreola, chief revenue officer at Deep Lens. “We are excited to integrate VIPER into this network so that an increasing number of cancer patients in New Mexico — in all geographic areas — have exposure and access to the newest therapies in development, which may help change the course of their disease.”
Deep Lens’ VIPER will be integrating directly to NMCC’s EMR (Flatiron Health’s OncoEMR), molecular data feeds (Tempus) and pathology feeds to automatically identify qualified patients for clinical trials. Like NMCC, any practice that utilizes OncoEMR can easily integrate VIPER and all other Deep Lens screening services free of charge.
About New Mexico Cancer Center
New Mexico Cancer Center is an independent, multi-disciplinary, multi-site practice operated by New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants Ltd. It was founded by Dr. Clark Haskins and Dr. Barbara McAneny in 1987, and from the very beginning the practice has been dedicated to providing the highest quality, most compassionate, comprehensive, patient-centered cancer care in New Mexico, focusing first on patients and their needs. The 31-person team of physicians and oncologists offers a full range of onsite oncology care, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, imaging, laboratory and rheumatology, as well as urology and pulmonary medicine services. NMCC operates in Albuquerque and Gallup, New Mexico. For more information, please visit www.nmcancercenter.org.
About Deep Lens
Deep Lens is a software company focused on a groundbreaking approach to faster recruitment of the best-suited cancer patients to clinical trials. VIPER, Deep Lens’ integrated cloud platform, provides care teams with visibility and workflows that combine lab, EMR, and genomic data to match cancer patients to clinical trials and precision therapies at the time of diagnosis, accelerating recruitment and compressing study timelines to bring game-changing therapies to market sooner. Growing with sponsors, providers, and strategic partners, Deep Lens challenges the status quo so that patients can get the best therapies. For more information, visit www.deeplens.ai.