Eric Lefkofsky’s Tempus Will Use Data to Help UChicago Battle Breast Cancer

Posted March 16, 2017

Published in ChicagoInno – March 16, 2017

Tempus, the cancer fighting startup from Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky, wants to give doctors at the University of Chicago data to help better treat breast cancer patients.

Chicago-based Tempus announced a partnership with the University of Chicago Medicine Thursday to provide molecular sequencing and analysis to UChicago’s breast cancer specialists in order to create personalized treatment plans for patients. Tempus says it will analyze data from around 1,000 breast cancer patients to help doctors and researchers uncover patterns that can predict how patients will respond to treatment.

The goal is that, over time, this data will help lead to better treatment and improved patient outcomes, Tempus says.

“Although breast cancer is among the most common cancers, there is relatively little accessible data on the millions of patients who have battled the disease,” Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, professor of medicine and human genetics and dean for global health at the University of Chicago, said in a statement.

“This forces too many physicians to make treatment decisions without the benefit of highly specific genetic information that could help them make better informed and precisely targeted decisions,” he added. “We are excited to partner with Tempus on this initiative and eager to support its efforts to build the largest clinically annotated molecular data set in breast cancer.”

Tempus uses machine learning and genomic sequencing to help doctors make real-time, personalized treatment decisions. The startup was founded in 2015 and came out of stealth last year. It’s headquartered at 600 W. Chicago, where Groupon, Lightbank, Drivin and Lekofsky’s other ventures are located.

UChicago is the latest in a string of partnerships Tempus has landed in recent months. It’s working with places like the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, the Mayo Clinic, and Rush University Medical Center, Penn Medicine, and the University of Michigan to use data to fight cancer.