New Study Validates Functional Precision Medicine Platform for Relapsed/Refractory Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) who relapse or become refractory (R/R) to first-line lymphoma treatment often face a challenging prognosis. Unfortunately, standard salvage treatment is empirical and not effective for every patient. Consequently, this can lead to progressively shorter response durations.

Now, a prospective study published in JCO Precision Oncology provides new evidence for a promising alternative: functional precision medicine (FPM). The study validates the clinical utility of the quadratic phenotypic optimization platform (QPOP), which is commercially known as Optim.AI™. This ex vivo FPM platform is designed to help guide treatment for difficult R/R-NHL cases. This validation in NHL builds on similar promising results from studies in 2024 in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and 2025 in Soft Tissue Sarcoma, further establishing the platform’s potential.

The Challenge of R/R-NHL

For patients with R/R non hodgkin’s lymphoma, selecting an effective subsequent treatment remains a significant clinical challenge. A key factor is intratumoral heterogeneity, which means cancer cells differ within the same tumor. As a result, a drug combination effective for one patient may not work for another. This disparity highlights the urgent need for personalised precision treatments beyond one-size-fits-all salvage therapies.

A Functional Approach: The Optim.AI™ Platform

Genomic-based precision medicine typically searches for targetable genetic mutations. Functional precision medicine, however, is different because it relies on multi-drug sensitivity testing. This approach measures the direct response of a patient’s live tumor cells ex vivo (outside the body).

The Optim.AI™ platform is an advanced FPM platform that uses an proprietary experiment design to perform this ex vivo testing. The resulting data is then analyzed by the Optim.AI™ software. The study notes this process predicts the efficacy of all possible drug permutations. This allows the platform to identify the best patient-specific combinatorial treatment from a large panel of potential therapies.

Key Findings from the Prospective Study

The study enrolled 117 patients with R/R B-cell NHL or NK/T-cell NHL. Its primary aim was to confirm the clinical benefit of Optim.AI™ in guiding treatment decisions. Out of 126 total cases, 105 were evaluable, and the results demonstrated significant clinical validation for the platform:

• High Clinical Concordance: The platform’s predictions were highly concordant with actual patient outcomes. In fact, the study reported an overall test accuracy of 74.5%, showing a strong ability to predict a patient’s response.
• Improved Patient Response: For patients who received off-label, Optim.AI™-guided drug combinations, the overall response rate (ORR) was 59%. This is a promising result for a patient population with limited options.
• Enhanced Duration and Survival: The clinical benefit of Optim.AI™-guided therapy was most evident in survival metrics.
  • Improved Response Duration: Notably, 59.3% of patients treated with Optim.AI™-guided combinations had an improved response duration compared to their immediately preceding treatment.
  • Longer Progression-Free Survival (PFS): Furthermore, the Optim.AI™-guided group saw a longer median PFS of 129 days. This was significantly longer than the 79 days observed in the clinician-guided group.

Why This Validation Matters

This study provides robust, prospective evidence that functional precision medicine is a critical tool in clinical oncology. As the authors noted, “This study further confirms that advancements in ex vivo combinatorial drug screening platforms like Optim.AI™ could complement existing genomic methods in identifying effective treatment options for patients with cancer, especially in R/R cases.”

For patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, this validation of the Optim.AI™ platform is a major step forward in precision medicine. It suggests a reliable new method for identifying effective, personalized combinatorial therapy through multi-drug sensitivity testing. Ultimately, this approach could improve outcomes for those with urgent clinical needs.

Source: Lee, R. X., Rashid, M. B. M. A., Sahib, N. R. B. M., Goh, J., De Mel, S., et al. (2025). Prospective Clinical Validation of a Combinatorial Functional Precision Medicine Platform in Relapsed/Refractory Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. JCO Precision Oncology, 9:e2400780.