AzTrials
AzTrials

Brain MetastasesPhase 2EViDENCE-BMNCT06620380

Ex Vivo Drug Response Evaluation for Next Generation Care of Brain Metastases

A Phase 2 study testing Pharmacoscopy 1.0 in people with Brain Metastases and Brain Metastases, Adult, run by University of Zurich at 3 sites in Switzerland.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
Search all trials

Trial summary

Pharmacoscopy refers to an ex vivo real-time drug sensitivity profiling platform that has been shown to be of value in the treatment of leukemia (Snijder et al. 2017) (Kornauth et al. 2022) and may help to identify novel treatment opportunities for brain tumors as well (Lee et al. 2022). Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 years and older
Conditions the study is for
Brain Metastases, Brain Metastases, Adult
What is being tested?
Pharmacoscopy 1.0
Type of treatment
Medical device
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
102 participants
Where
3 sitesSwitzerland
Study dates
12 Sep 2025to Jun 2027
Phase
Phase 2
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 18 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Patients must be 18 years or older on the day of signing the informed consent, female or male.
  • Patients must have a Karnofsky performance status of 60 or more
  • Patients must have limited systemic therapeutic options as per treating physician judgement. The number of previous lines of therapies is not limited.
  • Patients with a tumor with a targetable oncogenic driver mutation should have already been treated with a targeted agent and options must have been exhausted.
  • Patients must have a clinical indication for surgery for probable brain metastasis
  • Patients will be considered eligible for the study only if the diagnosis of brain metastasis has been histologically confirmed on the sample obtained during the surgery performed after signing the informed consent form for the trial.
Show all 11Show fewer
  • Any type of primary cancer is allowed: breast cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, other cancers. Patients may have several primary cancers.
  • Patients must have adequate bone marrow, renal and hepatic function documented at screening before surgery
  • Women of childbearing potential, including women who had their last menstruation in the last 2 years, must have a negative urinary or serum pregnancy test
  • Patients must have the ability to understand the requirements of the study, provide written informed consent and authorization of use and disclosure of protected health information, and agree to abide by the study restrictions and return for the required assessments.
  • Written informed consent for study participation must be signed and dated by the patient and the investigator prior to any study-related intervention.

Who cannot join

  • Patients with rapidly progressive systemic disease
  • Patients with inability to undergo brain MRI evaluation.
  • Patients with progressive parenchymal brain metastases with an indication for requiring whole brain radiotherapy after surgery. Focal brain radiotherapy after surgery is allowed.
  • Judgement by the investigator that the patient is unlikely to comply with study procedures, restrictions and requirements.
  • Intention to become pregnant during the course of the study.
  • Female who are pregnant.
  • Female who are breastfeeding and who do not agree to discontinue nursing prior to the first treatment initiated during the study.
  • Sexually active males and females of childbearing potential who are not willing to use an effective contraceptive method during the study. Male participants who do not agree not to donate sperm.

Trial locations and contacts

3 sites in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

Switzerland3 sites, 3 recruiting
  • University Hospital Basel

    Basel

    Gregor Hutter, +41 61 265 38 97, Gregor.Hutter@usb.ch

    Recruiting
  • Cantonal Hospital St Gallen

    Sankt Gallen

    Marian Neidert, +41 71 494 11 11, marian.neidert@kssg.ch

    Not yet recruiting
  • University Hospital Zurich

    Zurich

    Emilie Le Rhun, +41 44 255 38 99, emilie.lerhun@usz.ch

    Recruiting

Other trials in Switzerland

About this study

Pharmacoscopy refers to an ex vivo real-time drug sensitivity profiling platform that has been shown to be of value in the treatment of leukemia (Snijder et al. 2017) (Kornauth et al. 2022) and may help to identify novel treatment opportunities for brain tumors as well (Lee et al. 2022). The rationale for pharmacoscopy-based drug sensitivity testing on real-time patient biopsies or surgery material is multiple: measuring drug response and sensitivity directly in real-time patient material, overcomes the problem of limited molecular biomarkers for established targeted therapeutic options and can identify effective drugs even for non-targeted therapies such as chemotherapy. It can also identify hitherto unknown specific vulnerabilities of cancer cells. Furthermore, testing directly on patient material overcomes the limitations of patient-derived cell cultures, organoids, and patient xenografts, as their prolonged culture times risk cellular adaptations and clonal selection that alter drug sensitivity. Pharmacoscopy maintains the tumor cell composition, including bystander cells or tumor microenvironment, and limits cell culture to max 48 hours. Furthermore, pharmacoscopy measures drug responses on a single-cell and on a high-content level, uniquely allowing to measure the drug sensitivity of tumor cells, and allowing to compare it to the drug cytotoxicity on healthy cells from the same patient. This relative readout has previously been shown to be essential for the correct prediction of a clinical response in haematological malignancies (Snijder et al. 2017) (Kornauth et al. 2022).

The aim of this study is to generate preliminary data regarding superiority of the personalized pharmacoscopy-guided approach compared to a standard non-pharmacoscopy-guided approach, in patients with brain metastases with an indication for surgery, and limited therapeutic systemic options according to the treating physician.

Being tested
Pharmacoscopy 1.0, Control
Medical subject headings
Brain Neoplasms

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Pharmacoscopy 1.0Device

    Pharmacoscopy is currently an academically developed platform. The study is designed to investigate the clinical performance of this academic platform. In the interventional arm, the best candidate agent defined by pharmascopy will be considered to guide the therapeutic decision for each patient.

  • ControlOther

    The next systemic treatment after surgery will be discussed, with the investigator and at the tumor board, considering also standard histopathological and molecular analysis, including next generation sequencing, molecular profiling analysis and previous treatments received

Study groups in NCT06620380
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Arm 1: experimental arm, Pharmacoscopy-guided treatmentExperimentalArm 1 (experimental arm): Pharmacoscopy-guided treatment will be prescribed by the investigator according to the results of the analysis (relevant on-target effect) and per drug prescription guidelines.
Receives: Device: Pharmacoscopy 1.0
Arm 2: control armActive comparatorFor patients randomized to the control arm, no pharmacoscopy analysis will be performed.
Receives: Other: Control

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Overall survival

    Measured: 8 months

Secondary outcomes (12)
  1. Response assessment

    (A) in all patients: type of response; correlation of the type of response between CNS and extra-CNS compartments (B) in patients with measurable disease: type and duration of response; correlation of response rate between CNS and extra-CNS compartments.

    Measured: 8 months

  2. Progression free survival

    Measured: 8 months

  3. Quality of life and neurological status 1

    EORTC-QLQ C30 scale

    Measured: 8 months

  4. Quality of life and neurological status 2

    EORTC BN20 scale

    Measured: 8 months

  5. Quality of life and neurological status 3

    NANO scale (Neurological Assessment in Neuro-Oncology)

    Measured: 8 months

  6. Quality of life and neurological status 4

    Response assessement in Neuro-Oncology (RANO) seizure scale

    Measured: 8 months

  7. Quality of life and neurological status 5

    Karnofsky performance status scale

    Measured: 8 months

  8. Steroid use

    Consumption of steroids during the study

    Measured: 8 months

  9. Pharmacoscopy assessment 1

    rate of interpretable pharmacoscopy results, in the pharmacoscopy arm only

    Measured: 1 month

  10. Pharmacoscopy assessment 2

    description of potential causes of failure of the pharmacoscopy analysis, in the pharmacoscopy arm only

    Measured: 1 month

  11. Pharmacoscopy assessment 3

    rate of indication of pharmacoscopy guided-treatment, in the pharmacoscopy arm only

    Measured: 1 month

  12. Pharmacoscopy assessment 4

    access to the preferred drug selected by the pharmacoscopy, in the pharmacoscopy arm only

    Measured: 1 month

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted1 Oct 2024
  2. Study start12 Sep 2025
  3. Primary completionSep 2026 (estimated)
  4. Study completionJun 2027 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase 2
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomised
Intervention model
Parallel groups
Model description
Phase II interventional randomized non-comparative clinical study
Masking
None (open label)
Enrolment
102 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT06620380
Sponsor's protocol ID
EViDENCE-BM
Acronym
EViDENCE-BM
Status last verified
Jun 2026
First submitted
27 May 2024
Last updated
29 Jun 2026
Results posted
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Undecided

Publications

  • Lee S, Weiss T, Buhler M, Mena J, Lottenbach Z, Wegmann R, Sun M, Bihl M, Augustynek B, Baumann SP, Goetze S, van Drogen A, Pedrioli PGA, Penton D, Festl Y, Buck A, Kirschenbaum D, Zeitlberger AM, Neidert MC, Vasella F, Rushing EJ, Wollscheid B, Hediger MA, Weller M, Snijder B. High-throughput identification of repurposable neuroactive drugs with potent anti-glioblastoma activity. Nat Med. 2024 Nov;30(11):3196-3208. doi: 10.1038/s41591-024-03224-y. Epub 2024 Sep 20.

    PubMed 39304781
  • Snijder B, Vladimer GI, Krall N, Miura K, Schmolke AS, Kornauth C, Lopez de la Fuente O, Choi HS, van der Kouwe E, Gultekin S, Kazianka L, Bigenzahn JW, Hoermann G, Prutsch N, Merkel O, Ringler A, Sabler M, Jeryczynski G, Mayerhoefer ME, Simonitsch-Klupp I, Ocko K, Felberbauer F, Mullauer L, Prager GW, Korkmaz B, Kenner L, Sperr WR, Kralovics R, Gisslinger H, Valent P, Kubicek S, Jager U, Staber PB, Superti-Furga G. Image-based ex-vivo drug screening for patients with aggressive haematological malignancies: interim results from a single-arm, open-label, pilot study. Lancet Haematol. 2017 Dec;4(12):e595-e606. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3026(17)30208-9. Epub 2017 Nov 15.

    PubMed 29153976
  • Kornauth C, Pemovska T, Vladimer GI, Bayer G, Bergmann M, Eder S, Eichner R, Erl M, Esterbauer H, Exner R, Felsleitner-Hauer V, Forte M, Gaiger A, Geissler K, Greinix HT, Gstottner W, Hacker M, Hartmann BL, Hauswirth AW, Heinemann T, Heintel D, Hoda MA, Hopfinger G, Jaeger U, Kazianka L, Kenner L, Kiesewetter B, Krall N, Krajnik G, Kubicek S, Le T, Lubowitzki S, Mayerhoefer ME, Menschel E, Merkel O, Miura K, Mullauer L, Neumeister P, Noesslinger T, Ocko K, Ohler L, Panny M, Pichler A, Porpaczy E, Prager GW, Raderer M, Ristl R, Ruckser R, Salamon J, Schiefer AI, Schmolke AS, Schwarzinger I, Selzer E, Sillaber C, Skrabs C, Sperr WR, Srndic I, Thalhammer R, Valent P, van der Kouwe E, Vanura K, Vogt S, Waldstein C, Wolf D, Zielinski CC, Zojer N, Simonitsch-Klupp I, Superti-Furga G, Snijder B, Staber PB. Functional Precision Medicine Provides Clinical Benefit in Advanced Aggressive Hematologic Cancers and Identifies Exceptional Responders. Cancer Discov. 2022 Feb;12(2):372-387. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-21-0538. Epub 2021 Oct 11.

    PubMed 34635570

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A Phase 2 study testing Pharmacoscopy 1.0 in people with Brain Metastases and Brain Metastases, Adult, run by University of Zurich at 3 sites in Switzerland.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 11 inclusion and 8 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 29 Jun 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 3 sites in Switzerland. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

What does this phase mean?

Phase 2 studies give the treatment to a larger group to see whether it has the intended effect and to keep checking safety.

Not every study follows the same path, and some studies (observational studies, device studies) have no phase.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Contact Emilie Le Rhun (+41 44 255 38 99, emilie.lerhun@usz.ch), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Overall survival (time frame: 8 months). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT06620380, which also lists 3 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 29 Jun 2026.

Free account

Log in to keep searching

You’ve used your 3 free searches. AzTrials is free: log in or create a free account to keep searching clinical trials and save the ones you want to follow.

Create a free accountLog in