The CLIA-certified facility offers functional precision medicine testing that analyzes live tumor cells against FDA-approved therapies within 10 days.
First Ascent Biomedical has opened a specialized functional precision medicine laboratory in Miami and is now accepting patient samples through physician referrals. The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-certified and College of American Pathologists-certified facility tests therapies directly against patient-derived live tumor cells to guide personalized cancer treatment decisions.
The laboratory’s functional precision medicine approach tests hundreds of US Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs and combinations on patient-derived live tumor cells outside the body. This test data, combined with molecular data, aims to identify which therapies show the strongest response for specific patients, with results available in an average of 10 days.
“Our guiding principle is that no two people are the same. No two cancers are the same, and our testing helps oncologists treat accordingly,” says Jim Foote, CEO and co-founder of First Ascent Biomedical, in a release.
Sponsored Programs Remove Financial Barriers
The Miami lab launch includes sponsored testing programs supported by the State of Florida and the Fight Colorectal Cancer Foundation. These programs cover testing costs for eligible Florida residents and colorectal cancer patients nationwide, removing financial barriers for qualifying patients.
Physicians with potentially eligible patients can contact First Ascent Biomedical to confirm program eligibility and arrange sample logistics. The testing is designed for patients facing rare, relapse, or metastatic disease, or those with limited standard-of-care options.
Clinical Leadership Expansion
First Ascent has added two clinical leadership positions to support the lab opening. Dr Maggie Fader joins as chief medical officer, bringing more than a decade of functional precision medicine experience. Dr Prasanth Reddy has also joined the leadership team to help scale operations.
“I’ve used [First Ascent Biomedical] for more than a decade, and I’ve seen what’s possible when we stop guessing,” says Fader in a release. “I’ve cared for patients who were running out of options, some even entering hospice, who were able to return to meaningful, active lives after we used guided functional testing to understand how their cancer cells responded to different medications in the lab.”
Reddy emphasizes the technology’s potential to advance precision medicine beyond genomics alone. “For more than a decade, genomics, biomarker-drug identification, and treatment were the only options patients had for cancer when the standard of care failed, but it has its limits,” says Reddy in a release. “Validating the drugs effectively before treatment begins, incorporating functional drug testing into precision medicine takes oncology to the next level.”
Ex Vivo Testing Platform
The company’s oncology decision support platform integrates ex vivo live-cell drug sensitivity testing with molecular insights to produce individualized reports designed to help clinicians identify effective therapies and avoid ineffective ones. The approach focuses on each patient’s unique tumor biology to accelerate treatment decisions.
“Cancer doesn’t wait—and neither should treatment decisions,” says Foote in a release. “Our lab is open, fully operational, and already delivering life-changing insights so that clinicians, patients, and families can move forward with more clarity, more confidence, and more hope.”
The laboratory serves as First Ascent Biomedical’s effort to expand access to personalized cancer care through functional testing that analyzes how individual tumor cells respond to various treatment options before therapy begins.
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