As your preclinical program advances out of the screening stage of development, orthotopic models represent    a tumor growing in the primary tissue of origin or as a secondary metastatic deposit. Orthotopic models tend to be more clinically relevant and better predictors of drug efficacy. Additionally, tumor cells implanted directly into in their tissue of origin tend to grow better. For these reasons, orthotopic  models are better predictors of drug efficacy and are more clinically relevant. As the interest for orthotopic models for anti-cancer drug screening have significantly increased in recent years, due to the homing of some cancers to specific metastatic sites. Biomodels has met that need with the ongoing development of several orthotopic models. Specifically, models of invasive gliomoblastoma, breast and lung carcinoma have recently been validated with established cell lines.

While standard sub-cutaneous xenograft models of cancer can be useful for evaluating the potential of a novel therapeutic compound, they do not present There is significant evidence to suggest that the behavior of tumor cells can be significantly different when grown as a sub-cutaneous xenograft, compared to their behavior when implanted into either the tissue of origin, or implanted into a different organ, simulating a metastatic tumor. Biomodels offers orthotopic models of breast, ovarian and lung cancer and glioma in either rats or mice.