CULVER CITY, Calif. & MILAN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NantHealth, Inc., (Nasdaq: NH), a leading next-generation, evidence-based, personalized healthcare company, today announced that it has entered into an exclusive reseller agreement for GPS Cancer tests with Sorgente, the market leader in biobank, stem cell and now molecular profiling testing in Italy. The molecular tests help guide the decisions made by oncologists for a patient’s treatment strategy including choice of standard chemotherapy. The launch of this partnership comes on the heels of the kick-off of the XVIII Congresso Nazionale Aiom, (National Congress of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology), which took place in Rome, October 28-30th at the Marriott Park Hotel.

“As momentum continues to build not only nationally for GPS Cancer tests, but internationally as well, we’re excited to bring Sorgente onboard as our exclusive distributor of the test throughout Italy,” said Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, CEO of NantHealth. “For a country with a population of nearly 60 million people, Italy makes up one of the top 25 countries for cancer diagnosis. In 2016 in Italy alone, 176,200 women were diagnosed with cancer while there were 189,600 new diagnoses for men; this disease is touching the lives of so many worldwide and we’re excited at the possibilities GPS Cancer tests offer in terms of personalizing treatment options – something the industry is striving towards. Through this partnership, we’re able to offer Italian physicians the ability to make better informed decisions about treatment options for cancer patients – including choices for standard chemotherapy. Oncologists are recognizing that the value of GPS lies not only in providing insight into the responsiveness of the tumor for therapeutic decisions, but perhaps more importantly, providing guidance as to the presence of proteins in the tumor tissue that may indicate resistance to standard chemotherapy and avoiding unnecessary toxicities.”

Since the launch of its commercial availability in June 2016, GPS Cancer now has an established global footprint in the European market, which adds to the growing set of payers, providers, and Fortune 50 companies that have already committed to covering or using the comprehensive profiling test. Under the terms of the agreement, Sorgente will have exclusive rights to distribute GPS Cancer to physicians in Italy. The test, which integrates quantitative proteomics with whole genome (DNA) and transcriptome (RNA) sequencing, is the only integrated comprehensive molecular test of its type conducted in CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited laboratories. It provides oncologists with a comprehensive molecular profile of a patient’s cancer to inform personalized treatment strategies. As a cornerstone of the Cancer MoonShot 2020 program, GPS Cancer provides key insights based on the unique biology of a patient’s tumor—from the DNA to the RNA to the protein. This rich information helps doctors build more effective treatment plans based on FDA-approved drugs and active clinical trials, while enabling cancer researchers to design new clinical trials that harness the potential of the immune system.

“As Sorgente has traditionally been focused on providing the best services in umbilical cord blood banking and in genetic testing, the opportunity to partner with NantHealth for its GPS Cancer molecular profiling tests is an exciting one as we expand our mission of bringing healthcare providers the best and most advanced tools to treat patients,” said Marco Dotto, project manager for the oncology department in Sorgente Genetica. “In 2015, it was recorded that 4.5 percent of the Italian population was diagnosed with a tumor; this makes up a significant portion of our country and by partnering with NantHealth, we’re excited to bring physicians best-in-class tests that will help treat issues related to cancer that are not only affecting so many in Italy, but also worldwide.”

Unlike other tests on the market, GPS Cancer sequences the whole genome of 20,000+ genes and 3 billion base pairs and matches against the patient’s normal DNA, providing oncologists with an expansive view of alterations to inform personalized treatment strategies. GPS Cancer extends from genomics to proteomics not only through analysis of RNA, but also utilizes quantitative proteomics through mass spectrometry to measure the amounts of clinically relevant proteins that are the targets of or essential for various therapeutics. This clinically relevant information helps oncologists to better understand how patients may potentially respond to chemotherapies, targeted therapies and immunotherapies.

About NantHealth, Inc.

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 profile analysis 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 Sorgente

Sorgente is an Italian company operating in health services with the most advanced technologies and with the highest quality standard. Founded in 2009, the mission of Sorgente is to offer the best service in Europe for umbilical cord blood banking and genetic testing for the health of the whole family, Sorgente genetic tests include non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT), hereditary diseases (as breast cancer and thrombophilia) and food intolerance tests.

www.sorgente.com and www.sorgentegenetica.it

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.