LAUSANNE, Switzerland – June 21, 2022 – 4 pm (CEST) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technology to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, today announced the installation of its COMET™ PA instrument at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Researchers will use COMET™ to better understand the mechanisms of tumor-mediated immune suppression in pediatric brain cancer. Amy Heimberger, M.D, Jean Malnati Miller, Professor of Brain Tumor Research at Northwestern University, will lead the research project. Craig Horbinski, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Nervous System Tumor Bank, will co-administrate with Dr. Heimberger on project implementation and operational management.

There has been limited research on the tumor microenvironment of pediatric primary brain tumors to-date. Deconstruction-based assays such as flow cytometry decode the profiling of immune cell populations, although these methods provide very limited information about the spatial configuration of cellular interactions. Such insights could be valuable for identifying potential targets for immune therapeutics in children with brain cancer.

As part of the initial project, researchers will use COMET™ to study the composition, distribution, and interactions of immune cells within the different areas of the tumor microenvironment in pediatric primary brain tumors by performing multiplex staining. They will develop hyperplex immunofluorescence assay panels for use in the central nervous system using COMET™ with the goal of maximizing automation and staining quality, while minimizing sample processing time.

“Biomedical research has traditionally had to focus on a single gene or a single cell type. Such an approach will be insufficient for understanding cancer since this is a disease of interactions among a diverse array of neoplastic and non-neoplastic cells. COMET™ will allow us to better characterize those cellular interactions and be at the forefront of the new evolution of therapeutics that are focused on reshaping those interactions,” according to Dr. Heimberger.

“We are excited to support the Northwestern team as they conduct research into an area of unmet medical need that could have profound impact for children with brain cancer,” said Ata Tuna Ciftlik, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Lunaphore. “We are also proud to see the value our solution can create and for bringing spatial profiling to a broad and immediate set of applications. I personally look forward to seeing the groundbreaking research by Dr. Heimberger touching the patients in the future.”

To learn more about the COMET™ PA platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

To learn more about Lunaphore, please visit: https://lunaphore.com

 

About COMET™

COMET™ is a fully automated sequential immunofluorescence (seqIF™) instrument, able to perform hyperplex staining and imaging, producing high-quality data in a robust and reproducible manner. With superior tissue profiling capabilities, the system allows multiplex analysis of up to 40 different spatial markers per tissue slide without human intervention. COMET™ has a wide range of research applications, allowing for a dramatic improvement in the understanding of disease pathology in areas such as immuno-oncology, neuroscience, and infectious diseases. COMET™ is currently available through a Priority Access Program. To learn more about the COMET™ platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies. Lunaphore recently completed registration as C corporation in the United States as part of its continuing global expansion to serve customers and partners in the translational and clinical research markets. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit www.lunaphore.com.

 

 

For further information contact:

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

 

Company will also host sponsored symposium on high-plex spatial proteomics on June 20

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – June 14, 2022 – 11:00 am (CEST) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technology to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, today announced new research using its flagship COMET™ spatial biology platform and Indica Labs’ HALO® and HALO AI™ image analysis software to characterize the tumor microenvironment across different tumor types. The research will be presented at the 28th Congress of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) in Seville, Spain, on June 21, 2022 from 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST in Poster Section 1 (poster board number: P1-541).

The poster, titled “Depicting the cellular architecture of the tumor microenvironment by integrating hyperplex immunofluorescence and automated image analysis,” will showcase how the COMET™ platform was used to characterize cells in the tumor microenvironment across different tumor types using an immuno-oncology panel encompassing 20 biomarkers. After obtaining images using COMET™, researchers developed a deep learning classifier using Indica’s HALO® and HALO AI™ image analysis software to automatically identify the tumor and stroma areas. This classifier was then used to further quantify subpopulations of tumor and immune cells of the tumor microenvironment such as lymphocytes and macrophages within the different areas of the tissue. The immune cell–tumor interaction was interrogated by analyzing cell proximity to the tumor and exploration of the infiltration patterns.

“Our study demonstrated that COMET™ can provide a robust workflow to interrogate the composition of the tumor microenvironment that is easily adaptable to any tissue and any set of markers,” said Diego G. Dupouy, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer at Lunaphore. “Furthermore, the synergy between COMET™ and Indica’s HALO® and HALO AI™ image analysis software provides a seamless path to ease adoption of multiplex immunofluorescence technology and data analysis for scientists at every stage of their research.”

 

Sponsored Symposium on High-plex Spatial Proteomics

Lunaphore will also host a sponsored symposium titled “High-plex spatial proteomics made easy with automated sequential IF: how to get most of your research” on June 20, 2022 at 12:45 p.m. CEST in Auditorium 2 and 3. Charlotte Stadler, Ph.D., Head of the National Spatial Proteomics Facility at SciLifeLab, will discuss use cases of COMET™ from the perspective of a core facility. Dr. Dupouy will provide an overview of COMET™ for hyperplex sequential immunofluorescence (seqIF™) and how to maximize the technology.

 

 

To learn more about Lunaphore’s presentations at EACR, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/news/our-events/eacr-2022-annual-meeting/

To learn more about Lunaphore, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/

 

 

About COMET™

COMET™ is a fully automated sequential immunofluorescence (seqIF™) instrument, able to perform hyperplex staining and imaging, producing high-quality data in a robust and reproducible manner. With superior tissue profiling capabilities, the system allows multiplex analysis of up to 40 different spatial markers per tissue slide without human intervention. COMET™ has a wide range of research applications, allowing for a dramatic improvement in the understanding of disease pathology in areas such as immuno-oncology, neuroscience, and infectious diseases. The technology has the ability to revolutionize clinical applications such as drug discovery and biomarker development.

COMET™ is currently available through a Priority Access Program. To learn more about the COMET™ platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit www.lunaphore.com.

 

 

 

For further information contact:

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – June 9, 2022 – 4:00 pm (CEST) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technology to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, today announced it has successfully completed registration as a C corporation in the United States as part of its continuing global expansion to serve customers and partners in the translational and clinical research markets.

Lunaphore has recruited industry veterans to bring its spatial biology technology and expertise to support a growing base of U.S. customers. Registration in the U.S. will enable Lunaphore to continue expanding its team. Currently, Lunaphore has over 100 employees globally.

“Lunaphore is growing exponentially, and our U.S. presence will help address the increasing demand for our spatial biology technology across translational and clinical research,” said Ata Tuna Ciftlik, Chief Executive Officer at Lunaphore. “We are excited to have already deployed our products at several leading medical institutions in the U.S. and we look forward to scaling our operations in the coming years to service our U.S. partners.”

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies.

 

For further information contact:

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

LAUSANNE, Switzerland and ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – May 12, 2022 – 5 pm (CEST) | 9 am (MDT) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technology to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, and Indica Labs, a leading provider of computational pathology software and services, today announced a partnership to co-market an end-to-end solution that combines Lunaphore’s flagship COMET™ spatial biology platform and Indica’s HALO® and HALO AI™ digital pathology image analysis software.

Lunaphore’s COMET™ platform provides superior multiplex staining and image acquisition capabilities facilitating the automated detection of up to 40 separate spatial markers per tissue slide without human intervention. In contrast to other spatial biology solutions, COMET™ works with off-the-shelf, label-free antibodies and is designed to provide researchers with flexibility for their workflow. COMET™ has a wide range of research applications across immuno-oncology, neuroscience, and infectious diseases.

Indica Labs’ industry-leading HALO® and HALO AI™ software enable fast, AI-based quantitative analysis of whole slide images. In combination with the COMET™ platform, the HALO Highplex FL module allows researchers to quantify an unlimited number of fluorescent markers and cell phenotypes defined by their biomarker expression. HALO Spatial Analysis and HALO AI deep learning classifiers are used in combination with Highplex FL to explore the distribution and spatial relationships between different cell phenotypes in the context of the tissue, such as tumor and immune cells. This additional spatial data is particularly important in immuno-oncology and neuroscience disease research.

“We are excited to partner with Lunaphore to address the growing needs of our research customers for highly multiplexed assays,” said Steven Hashagen, CEO of Indica Labs. “Combining Lunaphore’s superior multiplexing technologies upstream with our powerful AI-based analysis downstream, together we provide a streamlined workflow for high dimensional imaging and image analysis.”

“Our partnership with Indica Labs is another key aspect of our strategy to combine our COMET™ technology with industry-leading image analysis technologies,” said Déborah Heintze, Chief Marketing Officer of Lunaphore. “Indica Labs’ solutions are used by a large set of researchers in the field, thanks to their ease of use and analysis capabilities. Combining Indica’s solutions with the class-leading capabilities of COMET™ will help us pursue our shared goal of making tissue image analysis easier and more accessible to labs around the world.”

 

To learn more about the COMET™ platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

To learn more about Lunaphore, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/

 

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit www.lunaphore.com.

 

 

About Indica Labs

Indica Labs is the world’s leading provider of computational pathology software and image analysis services. Our flagship HALO® and HALO AI™ platform facilitates quantitative evaluation of digital pathology images. HALO Link™ facilitates research-focused image management and collaboration while HALO AP® enables collaborative clinical case review. Our Pharma Services team leverages all our image analysis platforms to partner with you to advance tissue-based research, clinical trials, and diagnostics.

 

 

For further information contact:

 

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

 

Kate Lillard

Chief Scientific Officer, Indica Labs

Email: [email protected]

Annual awards program recognizes outstanding health and medical technology products and companies

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – May 5, 2022 (2:00 PM CEST) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technology to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, today announced that it has been awarded “Best New Technology Solution for Drug Development” in the sixth annual MedTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by MedTech Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global health and medical technology market.

The award honors Lunaphore’s technological achievements, including its flagship product COMET™, which is enabling research applications and the development of targeted therapies in far-reaching fields including immuno-oncology, immunology, neuroscience, and infectious diseases. Furthermore, Lunaphore’s multiplexed spatial biology tools have additional applications in identifying new biomarkers with potential prognostic value and new biomarkers correlated with response to immunotherapies.

“It is an honor to accept this award from MedTech Breakthrough, which recognizes our technology and our mission to make spatial biology accessible to every lab, with the goal of fueling the next generation of scientific research and drug development,” said Ata Tuna Ciftlik, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Lunaphore. “We have seen tremendous growth over the past year, marked by the commercial launch of our COMET™ platform and installations at leading research institutions.”

The mission of the MedTech Breakthrough Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the innovation, hard work, and success in a range of health and medical technology categories, including Telehealth, Clinical Administration, Patient Engagement, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Virtual Care, Medical Devices, Medical Data and many more. This year’s program attracted more than 3,900 nominations from over 15 different countries throughout the world.

“Extracting molecular and cellular information from tissues is critical to answering some of biology’s most pressing questions and could hold the key to the next generation of innovative medicines. However, current technologies are complex, expensive, manual or semi-manual and are not scalable, thus preventing wide adoption of spatial biology in translational and clinical research,” said James Johnson, managing director, MedTech Breakthrough. “By simplifying the staining and imaging process itself, Lunaphore is facilitating the widespread adoption of their breakthrough technology throughout the world. Through their innovations, Lunaphore has established itself as a driving force in the spatial biology revolution for years to come. Congratulations on being our choice for ‘Best New Technology Solution for Drug Development.’”

 

To learn more about the COMET™ PA platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

To learn more about Lunaphore, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/

 

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit www.lunaphore.com.

 

 

About MedTech Breakthrough

Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the MedTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in medical and health related technology companies, products, services and people. The MedTech Breakthrough Awards provide a platform for public recognition around the achievements of breakthrough health and medical companies and products in categories that include Patient Engagement, mHealth, Health & Fitness, Clinical Administration, Healthcare IoT, Medical Data, Healthcare Cybersecurity and more. For more information visit MedTechBreakthrough.com.

 

 

For further information contact:

 

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

 

Partnership to unify spatial staining and imaging with AI analysis technologies in end-to-end solution for researchers studying cancer and other diseases.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland and HØRSHOLM, Denmark – May 4, 2022 – 5:00 pm (CET) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technology to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, and Visiopharm, a company developing A.I.-driven precision pathology software, today announced a new partnership that will unite staining and imaging with A.I. analysis capabilities. Under the partnership, the companies will co-market a complete end-to-end solution that offers hyperplex immunofluorescence staining, image acquisition, and subsequent analysis with deep learning.

The combined offering will include Lunaphore’s COMET™, which can perform automated, hyperplex immunofluorescence staining and imaging, and Visiopharm’s Oncotopix® Discovery, an easy-to-use deep learning solution for tissue-based cancer research. COMET™ and Oncotopix® Discovery are compatible natively, and the combined offering provides an all-encompassing, interoperable spatial biology and data analysis solution for researchers.

Visiopharm is a world leader in A.I.-driven precision pathology software with over two decades experience pioneering innovation in digital pathology and partnering with the most recognized names in tissue-based disease research. With the launch of Oncotopix® Discovery, the most robust version of their respected research image analysis software platform to date, Visiopharm brings the power of deep learning to all. Oncotopix® Discovery allows any scientist, not just image analysis experts, to use their understanding of tissue morphology to train an A.I. deep learning APP to get accurate and reproducible data. The software also features the Multiplex Phenotyping module, an essential tool for investigating the tumor microenvironment revealed by staining platforms such as Lunaphore’s COMET™.

“The technology for staining and imaging multiplexed images is improving rapidly. However, the challenge is how to make sense of what is there,” says James Mansfield, Senior Vice President, Research Business Development at Visiopharm. “How do we interpret highplex staining in a way that not only reveals meaningful insights but does so accurately and reproducibly? That has been our focus from the beginning in developing our Multiplex Phenotyping module. We give researchers a beginning-to-end solution to create a cell phenotype map of the tissue microenvironment and then a set of helpful visualization tools like t-SNE plots and matrixes to verify and interpret the data.”

“That is where we see a powerful synergy between Visiopharm and Lunaphore,” Mansfield continued. “We are both interested in arming researchers with tools to conduct spatial biology analysis that deliver reproducible results. This is essential for true advancement to be made in both basic and especially translational studies.”

With superior tissue profiling capabilities, the COMET™ platform allows a multiplex analysis of up to 40 separate spatial markers per tissue slide without human intervention. COMET™ has a wide range of research applications across immuno-oncology, neuroscience, and infectious diseases.

“Our partnership with Visiopharm allows us to create a unified technology solution that can enhance our understanding of cancer pathology,” said Déborah Heintze, Chief Marketing Officer of Lunaphore. “By combining our leading spatial biology platform with Visiopharm’s deep learning capabilities, this collaboration can make it easier for laboratories to adopt and integrate spatial biology solutions for their research.”

 

To learn more about the COMET™ platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

To learn more about Lunaphore, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/

 

To learn more about Oncotopix Discovery, please visit: https://visiopharm.com/oncotopix-discovery/

To learn more about Visiopharm, please visit: https://visiopharm.com/

 

 

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit www.lunaphore.com.

 

 

 

About Visiopharm

Visiopharm® is a world leader in AI-driven precision pathology software. Their pioneering image analysis tools support thousands of scientists, pathologists, and image analysis experts in academic institutions, biopharmaceutical industry, and diagnostic centers. AI-based image analysis and tissue mining tools support research and drug development research worldwide, while CE-IVD APPs support primary diagnostics. With the most advanced and sophisticated artificial intelligence and deep learning, Visiopharm delivers tissue data mining tools, precision results, and workflows.

 

Visiopharm was founded in 2002 and is privately owned. The company operates internationally with over 900 licenses and countless users in more than 40 countries. The company headquarters are in Denmark’s Medicon Valley, with offices in Sweden, England, Germany, Netherlands and United States.

For further information contact:

 

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

 

Michelle Oswald

Marketing Manager, Research

Email: [email protected]

 

 

 

Propath UK is the first contract research organization in Europe to offer COMET™ services to biopharmaceutical researchers.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland and HEREFORD, United Kingdom – May 3, 2022 – 11:00 am (CET) | 10:00 am (BST) – Lunaphore, a Swiss life sciences company developing technologies to enable spatial biology in every laboratory, today announced that it has deployed its COMET™ PA instrument at Propath UK, one of Europe’s leading contract research organizations (CRO). Propath UK, a specialist in spatial proteomics and transcriptomics, is the first CRO in Europe to offer COMET™ services to researchers and the first organization to join Lunaphore’s Partner Labs Network, a network of CROs and academic core facilities that offer Lunaphore spatial biology solutions as a service to biopharmaceutical and academic researchers.

COMET™ is a strategic investment for Propath UK to expand its spatial biology service offerings with hyperplex staining and imaging, providing its biopharmaceutical research clients with unprecedented insights from tissue samples to answer biological questions. Lunaphore and Propath UK will work closely to provide a flexible service that meets the needs of researchers across various disciplines.

“We are delighted to form this partnership with Lunaphore and be able to offer our biopharmaceutical clients this highly innovative technology for spatial analysis,” said Dr. Krish Soni, Chief Executive of Propath UK. “We look forward to working closely with Lunaphore to help our clients unlock the incredible potential of hyperplex immunofluorescence through our world-class facility dedicated to spatial biology.”

“My team’s previous experience using COMET™ in a variety of applications at the University of Birmingham allowed us to validate the COMET™’s ability to produce staining results of exceptional quality and reproducibility and provided us the confidence to select Lunaphore as Propath’s hyperplex solution partner,” added Kelly Hunter, Chief Scientific Officer at Propath UK.

COMET™ is a fully automated sequential immunofluorescence (seqIF™) instrument, able to perform hyperplex staining and imaging, producing high-quality data in a robust and reproducible manner. With superior tissue profiling capabilities, the system allows multiplex analysis of up to 40 different spatial markers per tissue slide without human intervention. COMET™ has a wide range of research applications, allowing for a dramatic improvement in the understanding of disease pathology in areas such as immuno-oncology, neuroscience, and infectious diseases.

“We are excited to partner with Propath UK to expand their spatial biology capabilities,” said Ata Tuna Ciftlik, Chief Executive Officer at Lunaphore. “Propath UK is a highly specialized CRO with spatial biology capabilities who can bring spatial biology solutions to BioPharma. We quickly realized that combining the know-how of the Propath UK team and the versatility of COMET™, with its flexible and streamlined panel development capability using validated antibodies, we will be able to bring outstanding results to the end customers.”

 

 

To learn more about the COMET™ PA platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/

To learn more about Lunaphore, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/

To learn more about Propath UK, please visit: https://propath.co.uk

 

 

 

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore has developed a game-changing chip technology which can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors and transform any simple assay into multiplex spatial biology without complexity. Lunaphore empowers researchers to push the boundaries of research to ultimately develop the next generation personalized therapies. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit www.lunaphore.com.

 

 

About Propath UK

Propath UK is a specialist CRO providing research services in molecular pathology, spatial biology and histopathology for the global biopharmaceutical sector. The company offers a range of technologies for spatial proteomic and transcriptomic tissue analysis, including now the Lunaphore COMET™ platform for hyperplex IHC analysis. Propath’s reputation has been gained over the past 40 years by providing a consistent and responsive service across thousands of pre-clinical and clinical studies. To learn more, please visit www.propath.co.uk.

 

For further information contact:

Irene Tamayo

Lunaphore Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

 

Dave Swatman

Propath UK media enquiries

Email: [email protected]