The Role of CROs in Advancing Immuno-Oncology

Immuno-oncology has transformed the landscape of cancer treatment. By harnessing the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells, researchers are unlocking new therapeutic pathways with the potential to improve outcomes across a wide range of tumor types.

But progress in immuno-oncology is complex. It requires specialized expertise, access to high-quality biological materials, and tightly coordinated execution across discovery, translational research, and clinical development.

This is where contract research organizations (CROs) play a critical role.

A Contract Research Organization (CRO) provides outsourced research services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. In immuno-oncology, CROs help bridge capability gaps by offering:

• Scientific expertise
• Operational infrastructure
• Scalable resources
• Regulatory and clinical experience

By leveraging CRO partnerships, biopharma companies can accelerate development timelines, reduce costs, and focus internal teams on core strategic priorities.

Immuno-oncology programs require coordination across multiple, highly specialized domains. CROs support this work across the full development lifecycle.

Discovery and Translational Research

CROs help identify and validate:

• Novel targets and biomarkers
• Mechanisms of immune response and resistance
• Therapeutic candidates and combinations

This early-stage work lays the foundation for successful clinical development.

Access to high-quality human biospecimens is essential in immuno-oncology.

Biobanking partners support researchers by providing:

• Ethically sourced, well-characterized human specimens
• Standardized processing and quality control
• Access to diverse tumor types and matched samples

ABS Bio supports immuno-oncology research with a comprehensive portfolio of biospecimens, including:

• Fresh tumor tissues
• Dissociated tumor cells (DTCs)
• PBMCs (Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells)
• Advanced models such as 3D histoculture

These materials enable more accurate modeling of tumor biology and immune interactions.

CROs provide capabilities across a range of immunotherapy modalities, including:

• Monoclonal antibodies
• Checkpoint inhibitors
• Cytokine therapies
• Cancer vaccines
• Adoptive cell therapies

Support includes analytical development, quality control, and regulatory readiness for complex biologics.

For advanced therapies such as CAR-T and other adoptive cell therapies, CROs help manage:

• Cell engineering and manufacturing workflows
• Logistics and chain-of-custody requirements
• Clinical trial design and execution
• Safety monitoring and regulatory compliance

These therapies are highly personalized and operationally demanding—making experienced partners essential.

Beyond execution, CROs provide strategic advantages:

• Speed: Accelerate timelines from discovery through clinical trials
• Flexibility: Scale resources up or down as programs evolve
• Risk reduction: Leverage established processes and expertise
• Global reach: Enable multi-site clinical trials and regulatory navigation

For immuno-oncology—where timelines, competition, and complexity are high—these advantages are critical.

Immuno-oncology is not advancing in silos. Success increasingly depends on collaboration across:

• Biopharmaceutical companies
• CROs and biobanking partners
• Academic research institutions
• Regulatory bodies
• Patient advocacy groups

CROs play a central role in connecting these stakeholders—helping translate scientific discovery into viable therapies.

While CROs provide broad development support, biospecimen quality and availability remain a critical constraint in immuno-oncology research.

ABS Bio focuses on solving this challenge by delivering:

• High-quality, well-characterized human biospecimens
• Reliable procurement and processing workflows
• Access to diverse and clinically relevant sample sets
• Consistency across studies and sites

By strengthening this foundational layer, ABS Bio enables more reliable data generation—and more confident decision-making in immuno-oncology programs.

Immuno-oncology represents one of the most promising frontiers in cancer research—but also one of the most complex.

CROs play a vital role in advancing this field by providing the expertise, infrastructure, and scalability required to move therapies forward. Within this ecosystem, access to high-quality biospecimens is a critical enabler of success.

Through collaboration between biopharma companies, CROs, and specialized partners like ABS Bio, the pace of innovation in immuno-oncology will continue to accelerate—bringing new therapies to patients faster.