From sheet music to symphony in oncology - First Ascent Biomedical

Our latest episode features Jim Foote, CEO of First Ascent Biomedical, a company pioneering a fundamentally different approach to cancer treatment: treating drugs on a patient’s own tumor cells before administering them.

The problem? One in three cancer patients in America still dies from the disease, and cancer remains the leading killer of children by disease. Yet patients with the same diagnosis receive the same “cocktail” of drugs despite being genetically diverse individuals. Standard genomic sequencing identifies biomarkers but still leads to a “try and hope” approach.

First Ascent’s Functional Precision Medicine platform changes this equation entirely. They culture live tumor cells from patient biopsies alongside immune and stromal cells, then use robotics and AI to test hundreds of FDA-approved drugs and combinations against these cells in approximately 10 days. The result: clinicians learn not just what might work, but what definitely won’t.

The evidence is compelling. A study published in Nature Medicine demonstrated an 83% correlation between their test results and actual patient responses in refractory patients who had already failed standard care. Jim shares the story of Logan, a child with relapsed leukemia whose testing revealed that the standard drug would have been ineffective and cardiotoxic. The alternative drug identified by the platform achieved remission, and Logan remains healthy five years later.