Flatiron Aims To Accelerate, Personalize Cancer Research

It reads like a case study from a textbook on entrepreneurship. Two alumni of one of the US’ leading business schools, with a string of start-ups behind them, launch an advertising technology and software company that is later acquired by Google. While working at Google, both came to realize that, although the cancer landscape was evolving rapidly, the technology supporting research into new treatments was lagging far behind. Their response in 2012 was to create Flatiron Health Inc., a cancer analytics company whose stated mission is "serving cancer patients and our customers by dramatically improving treatment and accelerating research.”

Fast forward four years to May 2016 when Flatiron announced a research collaboration agreement with the US FDA to determine how anonymized data derived from patients not taking part in clinical trials can provide new insight into the safety and effectiveness of emerging anticancer therapies. As part of the agreement, Flatiron and the FDA are exploring the use of immunotherapeutic agents in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in particular analytic approaches, clinically relevant endpoints and methods for assessing safety