On February 25, 2016 Foundation Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:FMI) reported that the company will release to the public molecular profiles of pediatric cancers currently maintained as part of FoundationCore, the company’s information knowledgebase (Press release, Foundation Medicine, FEB 25, 2016, View Source [SID:1234509199]). FoundationCORE is one of the largest and most robust collections of common and rare clinical tumor profiles globally. The release of this data is part of the company’s ongoing effort to stimulate and accelerate research and development of much needed precision oncology therapies to treat all cancers, including pediatric cancers. The announcement of the data release, which is the first-of-its-kind from FoundationCORE, was announced today at the Precision Medicine Initiative Summit held at the White House.

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"One of the biggest impediments to progress in the field of childhood cancer is the paucity of genomic data available from patients at the time of disease relapse. These data are critical to defining comprehensive strategies to precisely treat relapsed disease, and more importantly, to prevent disease recurrence in the first place," stated John M. Maris, M.D., Giulio D’Angio Endowed Professor of Pediatric Oncology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "The data being made available from Foundation Medicine will serve as a tremendous resource for the cancer research community and should catalyze the process of bringing effective new therapies to children with cancer."

FoundationCORE is a molecular information knowledgebase that contains genomic information and insights from more than 68,000 adult and pediatric patients whose tumors were profiled by Foundation Medicine. FoundationCORE is continuously evolving over time, informed by every new tumor sequenced with the company’s clinical comprehensive genomic profiling assays, FoundationOne and FoundationOne Heme. Foundation Medicine is developing a web-based HIPPA-compliant portal for public access to the de-identified, molecular-level pediatric tumor information contained in FoundationCORE. The portal is expected to be accessible for public access by March 31st.

"The proposed release of data by Foundation Medicine is a major advance towards achieving our nation’s precision medicine initiatives, particularly in an area of significant unmet need for children," said Nancy Goodman, executive director, Kids v Cancer. "This type of out-of-the-box initiative gives great hope to the families and patients who need it most. We’re looking forward to the renaissance in targeted and immunotherapies for children that may come as a result of this data."

Pediatric cancers are a rare and diverse collection of diseases. While childhood and adolescent cancer is rare, it remains the leading cause of death by disease among children. The American Cancer Society predicted that about 10,380 children in the United States would be diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and childhood cancer rates have been rising slightly for the past few decades.1 The data set being released from FoundationCORE offers robust opportunities for researchers, and can be used to generate hypotheses, validate rare findings and investigate the genomic landscape of rare tumors for which only small studies exist. Data from thousands of tumors will be publicly available without cost to the research community for exploration and incorporation into future experiments that will ultimately improve the treatment and prognosis for children with cancer.

"There are few things in life as devastating as when a child is diagnosed with cancer. It’s critically important to the achievement of our corporate mission that the robust genomics information we have amassed is freely and easily accessible to researchers and utilized as an important tool to address the significant unmet medical need in pediatric cancers," said Michael Pellini, M.D., chief executive officer, Foundation Medicine. "We are extremely proud to be in a position that enables us to foster global collaborations among researchers by providing anywhere, anytime access to rich molecular information in an easy to use format. In doing so, we hope to accelerate the pace of innovation in pediatric cancer with the intent of bringing new, potentially lifesaving therapeutics to children."