TGen Joins City of Hope System

By Bio-IT World Staff

December 2, 2016 Translational Genomics Research Institute—TGen—has formed an alliance with City of Hope, a world-renowned independent research and cancer and diabetes treatment center, to make precision medicine a reality for patients. City of Hope hopes to provide a significant clinical setting to advance scientific discoveries made by TGen.

TGen will remain an Arizona-based nonprofit with headquarters in Phoenix, but as part of the agreement, TGen will join the City of Hope system by becoming a subsidiary of the City of Hope parent organization. William Post, TGen board chairman, will join City of Hope's board of directors, and Jeffrey M. Trent, Ph.D., president and research director for TGen, will remain president and research director at TGen and will report to City of Hope's CEO Robert W. Stone. Stone has accepted a seat on the TGen board and will serve as vice chairman.

“Patients want choices and access to the newest and most advanced care available,” said Stone. “City of Hope and TGen share a common vision for improving patient outcomes, and our collaboration will speed cancer cures by rapidly advancing discoveries to define high-risk populations, identifying targets for prevention and treatment, and promoting initiatives that close health equity gaps.”

“This alliance will enable us to fully deploy genomic-enabled medicine within a modern health care system to create a disruptive change in the practice of medicine. Our aim is to not only navigate this changing field, but lead it,” said TGen’s Trent.

In forming this alliance, City of Hope and TGen will focus on leveraging their respective strengths in patient care and genomics to develop a comprehensive Personalized Hope program to detect disease sooner, and improve patient quality of life and survival. Near term, they will focus on leveraging their respective strengths in immunotherapy and genomics to rapidly gain new insights into immune function and expand opportunities for the rational design of new immune interventions.