National Cancer Care Alliance Partners With Deep Lens to Position AI-Based Clinical Trial Matching Solution Viper™ as Preferred Technology for Network

Agreement provides NCCA sites access to VIPER™ and other Deep Lens services to improve clinical trial recruitment efficiency

Partnership will also expand clinical trial offering to patients for participating NCCA sites

COLUMBUS, Ohio & ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Deep Lens and the National Cancer Care Alliance (NCCA) today announced a strategic collaboration that positions Deep Lens’ VIPER™ as the preferred technology solution for clinical trial program management throughout the 17-practice, U.S.-based network. VIPER uses proprietary cloud-based technology to facilitate, triage, and accelerate the clinical trial recruitment process. NCCA’s network includes over 200 oncologists who are practicing in more than 85 diverse geographical locations in the U.S. Several NCCA practices, including Dayton Physicians Network, New England Cancer Specialists and New Mexico Cancer Center, were early adopters of the VIPER technology. Through this partnership, the Deep Lens solution will become available to all oncology cancer centers in the NCCA network. VIPER is designed to streamline clinical trial enrollment, alleviate resource constraints and expand clinical trial opportunities for patients who wish to enroll.

“Despite significant and remarkable advances in our understanding of cancer and the development of novel, targeted therapies to treat it, patient participation in clinical trials -- namely, the most critical element of bringing a new drug to market -- has remained extremely low,” said Barbara L. McAneny, M.D., board chair of NCCA, CEO of New Mexico Cancer Center and former president of the American Medical Association. “Enrollment in oncology trials 20 years ago was close to three percent, and today, this figure sadly remains the same. We look forward to deploying the Deep Lens solution into our network to increase accrual rates, and attract more precision trials to community oncology practices, where the large majority of patients are actually diagnosed and treated.”

It is estimated that more than 15,000 oncology clinical trials are actively recruiting patients; however, fewer than 1 in 30 patients participate in a clinical trial. Limited trial site resources make it time-consuming to identify eligible patients, especially as trial protocols increase in complexity. VIPER supports care teams by automating the identification of potentially eligible patients at the time of diagnosis and easily matching them to relevant trials.

“The lack of ethnic and racial diversity in oncology studies has been well-established, and is largely a result of social, economic and geographic challenges related to how individuals learn about and are able to access trials,” said Greg Andreola, chief revenue officer for Deep Lens. “We believe that community oncology centers are central to making the oncology trial process more inclusive and representative of the larger U.S. population. Providing these sites with Deep Lens’ services and technology solutions like VIPER will not only increase the efficiency by which they can facilitate trials but will also allow them to attract more trials, ultimately resulting in a greater number of patients who are able to receive cutting-edge therapies. We are thrilled to be partnering with such a well-respected and comprehensive coalition of oncology practices who at their very core, are interested in bringing every opportunity possible to their patients in their fight against cancer.”

VIPER works through ingestion and analysis of genomic data, electronic medical records, and pathology data. Deep Lens’ VIPER has the ability to integrate with any EMR system (including but not limited to: OncoEMR, iKnowMed, VieCure, Epic Records, Cerner, MOSAIQ and CureMD), any molecular data feed (including but not limited to: Caris Life Sciences, Foundation Medicine, Tempus, Guardant and NeoGenomics) and pathology feeds to automatically identify qualified patients for clinical trials.

About the National Cancer Care Alliance, LLC

The National Cancer Care Alliance (NCCA) is a network of 17 independent oncology practices from across the United States. The NCCA organization is composed of over 200 physicians, dedicated to providing the best possible care to patients with cancer and blood disorders. NCCA is governed by physicians through a Leadership Board made up of physician-members. NCCA members, through collaboration, sharing of best practices, economies of scale, and a team care approach, define and deliver high quality, high value health care. For more information about NCCA, visit: www.nccalliance.org.

About Deep Lens

Deep Lens is a digital healthcare 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.