Clarity in diagnosis.
Confidence in decisions. Better lives.
Exploring the living biology of prostate cancer to reveal deeper insights and help shape more informed treatment decisions.
About STAGE-Dx
STAGE-Dx is developing a new generation of functional precision medicine for prostate cancer.
We grow patient-derived tumour models from biopsy tissue and observe how they behave. Combining organoid technology, imaging and quantitative analysis, STAGE-Dx aims to improve assessment of tumour aggressiveness and support treatment decisions. Models can be interrogated across tumour stages and clinical histories to validate genetic findings, investigate tumour biology and triage drugs. Our goal is to connect diagnosis, tumour biology and therapeutic decision-making, giving clinicians and patients confidence when choosing surveillance or treatment.
Value Proposition
One patient-derived platform, multiple clinically
valuable answers.
STAGE-Dx is designed to help distinguish prostate cancers that can be safely monitored from those that require treatment. Beyond diagnosis, the platform creates a living biological model that can help validate the functional significance of genetic findings and prioritise drugs according to tumour response.
By studying models from patients at different disease stages and clinical history points, STAGE-Dx can connect tumour biology with progression and treatment response. This creates value for patients, clinicians, healthcare systems, diagnostic companies and drug developers.
The Problem
Prostate cancer diagnosis still leaves uncertainty about what happens next. Many tumours grow slowly, while others are aggressive and need early intervention.
Yet current risk assessment relies largely on snapshots of a complex, heterogeneous disease, and biopsy classification can differ from post-surgical pathology in almost 50% of cases. This can drive both over-treatment and under-treatment. The same limitation affects research and drug development: genomic findings do not always reveal functional consequences, while static samples cannot be repeatedly interrogated to understand tumour behaviour, treatment response, or disease evolution.
Our Solution
STAGE-Dx turns a prostate biopsy into a living test of tumour behaviour. Using tissue collected during diagnosis, we grow patient-derived tumour models and analyse how they behave to assess tumour aggressiveness.
These living models can also be exposed to therapies, enabling drug triaging and functional validation of genetic findings. By studying models from different tumour stages and clinical histories, STAGE-Dx can explore how tumour biology evolves with disease and treatment. This creates a versatile platform for diagnosis, precision treatment selection, biomarker validation and therapeutic development, using each patient's living tumour.
Our team
Founders
Ferran Valderrama, PhD
Associate Professor in Cancer Cell Biology
Inventor of STAGE technology and founder of STAGE-Dx
Dimitrios Vomvas, MD
Director of Radiation Oncology
and Nuclear Medicine at BOCOC
Aurora Campagna, PhD
Post Doctoral Research Associate in Translational Oncology. Inventor of STAGE technology and founder of STAGE-Dx
Collaborators
Nicola Pavan, PhD, MD
Associate Professor in Precision Medicine and Surgery and Consultant Urologist at
Policlinico Paolo Giaccone
Rami Issa, MD
Consultant Urological Surgeon
at St George's Hospital Trust
Gerd Heimlich, PhD
Yokogawa Corp Life
Sciences Team
Denosshan Sri, MD
Consultant Urological Surgeon
at St George's Hospital Trust
Fredrik Wieland, PhD
Yokogawa Corp Life
Sciences Team
Elisavet Papageorgiou, PhD
Head of Clinical Trials Unit
at BOCOC
Yvonne Dürnberger, PhD
Yokogawa Corp Life
Sciences Team