Oncology Giant Skip Burris Joins Elephas to Guide Live-Tumor Test to Market

MADISON, WI – July 09, 2026 – In a move signaling a major push toward commercialization, Elephas Biosciences has appointed one of the most influential figures in modern oncology, Dr. Howard A. 'Skip' Burris III, to its Board of Directors. The Madison-based private company is developing a novel platform to predict patient response to immunotherapy, a field plagued by uncertainty despite its revolutionary potential. The addition of Dr. Burris, a former ASCO president with a formidable track record in drug development, is a significant validation of the company's approach and a strategic play to navigate the complex path from lab to clinic.

At the core of this development is a stark reality in cancer care: while immunotherapies have transformed outcomes for some, they are effective in only about one in five patients. For the other 80%, these powerful and costly treatments can lead to severe side effects with no clinical benefit. Elephas aims to solve this dilemma with its elive™ platform, which uses live patient tumor tissue to observe a drug's effect in real-time, a departure from the static, and often unreliable, biomarkers currently used.

The Weight of a Titan

To understand the gravity of this appointment, one must understand the stature of Dr. Skip Burris. His career is a blueprint for translating cutting-edge cancer research into standard clinical practice. As the former President and Chief Medical Officer of the Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI), he was instrumental in building one of the world's leading clinical trial organizations, pioneering the model of community-based early-phase drug development. Under his leadership, SCRI conducted over 850 first-in-human trials, contributing to the FDA approval of a multitude of therapies that are now cornerstones of cancer treatment.

His influence extends across the oncology ecosystem. As president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) for the 2019-2020 term and current Chair of Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, Dr. Burris has shaped policy, research priorities, and clinical education at the highest levels. His recent transition to an advisory role at SCRI has freed him to lend his considerable expertise to promising ventures like Elephas. For a private company on the verge of entering the market, securing a board member with this level of clinical and regulatory acumen is a critical success indicator, providing invaluable guidance and a powerful endorsement to potential partners and investors.

Beyond Static Biomarkers: The Promise of a Living Test

Elephas is tackling the immunotherapy prediction problem by moving away from the industry's reliance on static biomarkers. Current methods, such as testing for PD-L1 protein expression or calculating tumor mutational burden (TMB), provide a snapshot of the tumor's genetic or protein landscape. While useful, they often fail to capture the dynamic, complex interplay between cancer cells and the immune system, which ultimately determines whether an immunotherapy will work.

The elive™ platform proposes a fundamentally different approach. It takes a live core needle biopsy from a patient and preserves the tissue's native three-dimensional architecture and, crucially, its entire tumor microenvironment (TME). This living sample is then exposed to immunotherapies ex vivo (outside the body), allowing researchers to directly observe and measure the immune response in real-time. This functional assessment provides a preview of how the tumor will likely behave inside the patient.

"For too long, we have given immunotherapies to patients without a reliable way to predict who will respond. Elephas is working to change that by measuring how a living tumor actually behaves," Dr. Burris stated in the announcement. "That kind of functional insight can help clinicians and researchers make better decisions, and I am glad to support the team as it furthers the elive platform."

This philosophy is shared by the company's leadership. "Dr. Burris has dedicated his career to transforming how cancer therapies reach patients," said Maneesh Arora, Elephas founder and CEO, who previously helped scale diagnostics firm Exact Sciences. "That vision aligns closely with our mission to bring real-time immunotherapy response insights to more clinicians and researchers, and his guidance will be invaluable as we commercialize."

Navigating a Crowded and Critical Market

The market for cancer diagnostics is fiercely competitive, populated by giants in genomic profiling like Foundation Medicine and Guardant Health, as well as innovators in spatial biology and liquid biopsy. These companies have made significant strides in personalizing medicine, yet the predictive gap in immunotherapy remains.

Elephas's use of live tissue explants places it in a category of functional diagnostics that many experts believe is the next frontier. According to one biotech analyst not affiliated with the company, "Static genomic data tells you what could happen. Functional assays that preserve the TME aim to tell you what will happen. It's a much more direct and powerful question to answer, but it comes with immense technical challenges."

Those challenges are significant. The process requires obtaining a viable biopsy, maintaining the tissue's integrity outside the body, and standardizing the assay to ensure reproducible results. Furthermore, the platform must prove its clinical utility in large-scale prospective trials, demonstrating that its predictions lead to better patient outcomes—a high bar for achieving widespread adoption and reimbursement from payers.

The Path to Clinical Impact

This is precisely where Dr. Burris's expertise becomes most critical. His career has been defined by overcoming the logistical and scientific hurdles of implementing novel research in real-world clinical settings, particularly in the community oncology centers where the vast majority of cancer patients are treated. His guidance will be essential in designing the clinical trials needed for validation, forging partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, and building a strategy for clinical adoption.

If successful, the impact of the elive™ platform could be transformative. For patients, it could mean avoiding months of grueling, ineffective treatment and being directed to a potentially life-saving therapy from the start. For clinicians, it offers a tool to move beyond educated guesses and make data-driven decisions. For the healthcare system, it promises to reduce spending on ineffective drugs and improve the overall value of cancer care.

With cancer cases projected to triple by 2060, the need for more precise and effective treatments has never been more urgent. The strategic alignment of a pioneering technology with one of the field's most respected translational researchers marks a serious effort by Elephas Biosciences to meet that need head-on.