NantHealth Partners with Children’s Hospital of Orange County to Revolutionize Pediatric Cancer Care Through the Use of GPS Cancer™

NantHealth Partners with Children’s Hospital of Orange County to Revolutionize Pediatric Cancer Care Through the Use of GPS Cancer™

September 21, 2016

GPS Cancer will allow physicians to identify personalized treatments for children with rare, refractory or recurrent cancers for whom conventional approaches have proven unsuccessful

Research partnership will provide new hope for an estimated 15,780 children between the ages of birth and 19 years of age who are diagnosed with cancer each year1

CULVER CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In an effort to accelerate and improve the course of pediatric cancer care, NantHealth, Inc., (Nasdaq:NH) today announced a research agreement with Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC). CHOC, through its Hyundai Cancer Institute, will utilize GPS Cancer – the leading molecular test for personalized medicine, to generate, analyze, and annotate the molecular profile characteristics of children, adolescents and young adults with rare, recurrent, or refractory tumors. NantHealth is a leading next-generation, evidence-based, personalized health care company; CHOC is one of the nation’s premier children’s hospitals and a founding member of the Pediatric Consortium of Cancer MoonShot 2020.

“Childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children in the United States, so the time is now to develop treatment options to combat this disease, specifically in pediatric patients2,” said Leonard S. Sender, MD, Co-Director of the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine. “Each year, cancer is diagnosed in 175,000 children under the age of 14 worldwide and survival rates vary depending on the type of cancer3. Through the use of GPS Cancer, we have the opportunity to identify treatments for these patients for whom conventional treatment options have been unsuccessful. The test’s unique application of quantitative proteomics allows our researchers and physicians to be significantly more informed about the molecular characterization of cancers in patients and for the first time, enables personalized treatment options for pediatric cancer patients. This research partnership with NantHealth is another step towards transforming pediatric oncology.”

GPS Cancer, available through NantHealth, is a unique, comprehensive test integrating whole genome (DNA) sequencing, whole transcriptome (RNA) sequencing, and quantitative proteomics to provide oncologists with a comprehensive molecular profile of a patient’s cancer to inform personalized treatment strategies and identify therapies that may have clinical benefit for the patient. Throughout the partnership, CHOC’s participant samples and data will be collected under the hospital’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) to ensure that all research will be conducted in accordance with all federal, institutional, and ethical guidelines. From there, NantHealth will conduct GPS Cancer testing in the CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratories and will deliver results to CHOC within about three weeks from receipt of tissue. The collaboration will allow both NantHealth and CHOC to carry out epitope discovery to identify factors that inform actionable diagnostic and therapeutic targets and prognostic indicators. NantHealth will enable the Hyundai Cancer Genomics Center at CHOC to house and manage its genomic research data in a cloud-based storage setting.

“Often times, pediatric cancer care is overlooked when it comes to innovation in diagnostics and treatment, which is something we must correct. As the industry continues to put a strong emphasis on personalized healthcare, it is essential to consider how we can apply the best and most ground-breaking treatment options that will fit the needs of children who are impacted by the disease,” stated Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, founder and CEO of NantHealth and founder of the Cancer MoonShot 2020 program. “Through this partnership with the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, we now have the ability to investigate the molecular profiling of pediatric cancer patients in order to understand the cause of rare cancers, which will then help us develop effective treatment options. With the unique needs of pediatric oncology, we are confident that GPS Cancer will enable the hospital to accelerate its research efforts to discover how pediatric and young adolescent cancer patients can be treated in a way that is unique to each patient.”

Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, among others, statements regarding the capabilities and anticipated utility of our GPS Cancer, including predicting patient response and resistance to therapeutics, enabling diagnoses by physicians and accelerating efforts to bring novel combinations of therapeutic agents to cancer patients, as well as our contribution to the Cancer 2020 initiative. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from currently anticipated results. Factors that may cause future results to differ materially from management’s current expectations include, among other things, that GPS Cancer may not perform as anticipated, that sufficient physicians may not adopt GPS Cancer to assist their diagnoses or that healthcare payers may not provide reimbursement for GPS Cancer as expected. Our business is subject to numerous additional risks and uncertainties, including, among others, risks relating to market acceptance of our products; our ability to successfully launch new products and applications; competition; our sales, marketing and distribution capabilities; our planned sales, marketing, and research and development activities; unanticipated increases in costs or expenses; and risks associated with international operations. Information on these and additional risks, uncertainties, and other information affecting our business and operating results can be found in our existing and future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as may be required by law.

About NantHealth
NantHealth, Inc., a member of the NantWorks ecosystem of companies, is a next-generation, evidence-based, personalized healthcare company enabling improved patient outcomes and more effective treatment decisions for critical illnesses. NantHealth’s unique systems-based approach to personalized healthcare applies novel diagnostics tailored to the specific molecular profiles of patient tissues and integrates this molecular data in a clinical setting with large-scale, real-time biometric signal and phenotypic data to track patient outcomes and deliver precision medicine. For nearly a decade, NantHealth has developed an adaptive learning system, CLINICS, which includes its unique software, middleware and hardware systems infrastructure that collects, indexes, analyzes and interprets billions of molecular, clinical, operational and financial data points derived from novel and traditional sources, continuously improves decision-making and further optimizes our clinical pathways and decision algorithms over time. For more information please visit www.nanthealth.com and follow Dr. Soon-Shiong on Twitter @DrPatSoonShiong.

About GPS Cancer™
GPS Cancer™ is a unique, molecular scan available through NantHealth. GPS Cancer integrates whole genome (DNA) sequencing, whole transcriptome (RNA) sequencing, and quantitative proteomics through mass spectrometry, providing oncologists with a comprehensive molecular profile of a patient’s cancer and an assessment of protein pathway function to inform personalized treatment strategies. GPS Cancer scanning is conducted in CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited laboratories, and is a key enabler for Cancer MoonShot 2020, the world’s most comprehensive cancer collaborative initiative seeking to accelerate the potential of combination immunotherapy as the next generation standard of care in cancer patients. For more information, visit www.gpscancer.com and www.cancermoonshot2020.org.

About Children’s Hospital of Orange County
Named one of the best children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report (2016-2017) and a 2015 Leapfrog Top Hospital for the highest quality of care, Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC Children's) is exclusively committed to the health and well-being of children through clinical expertise, advocacy, outreach, education and research that brings advanced treatment to pediatric patients. Affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, CHOC’s regional health care network includes two state-of-the-art hospitals in Orange and Mission Viejo, many primary and specialty care clinics, a pediatric residency program, and four clinical centers of excellence - the CHOC Children’s Heart, Neuroscience, Orthopaedic and Hyundai Cancer Institutes.

1 http://www.acco.org/us-childhood-cancer-statistics/
2 http://www.cancer.gov/types/childhood-cancers/child-adolescent-cancers-fact-sheet
3 https://www.stjude.org/treatment/pediatric-oncology/childhood-cancer-facts.html

NantWorks
Jen Hodson, 562-397-3639
jhodson@nantworks.com

Source: NantHealth, Inc.