From a Father’s Mission to a New Voice in Precision Oncology

How Anti-PR® Generated 123 Media Placements and $6.79 Million in Publicity Value

First Ascent Biomedical was born from CEO and co-founder Jim Foote’s deeply personal experience losing his 16-year-old son, Trey, to bone cancer. That loss became the mission behind a company focused on giving physicians better, patient-specific evidence when cancer treatment decisions are most uncertain.

The mission and science were powerful, but Functional Precision Oncology was still an emerging category, while much of the precision-oncology conversation remained centered on genomics.

JOTO PR Disruptors™ translated First Ascent’s science, clinical evidence, and human purpose into clear, timely media narratives that gave its mission a larger platform.

The Proof Pill

Results from September 2025–July 2026:

• 123 media placements
• 3.88 billion potential audience
• $6,789,698 in documented publicity value

“The mission was already there. Anti-PR gave it a larger platform.”

See how JOTO PR turns complex innovation into measurable authority.

 

Media Case Study

123 Media Placements and $6.79 Million in Publicity Value

Results at a Glance

The placement, audience, and publicity-value figures reflect documented media coverage from September 2025 through July 2026.

The Outcome

Across the campaign, JOTO PR Disruptors began moving First Ascent Biomedical’s story beyond specialized scientific and clinical communities and into television, mainstream news, healthcare, business, medical-technology, pharmaceutical, podcast, and patient-focused conversations.

The campaign created repeated visibility around the ideas First Ascent needed audiences to understand: patient-specific evidence, live tumor biology, the limits of relying on genomics alone, and the role of individualized machine learning in supporting more informed cancer treatment decisions.

It also gave the company’s deeply personal mission a larger platform. A founder-focused story about turning tragedy into a mission to change childhood cancer treatment was carried through regional television and amplified by Yahoo! News, MSN, and NewsBreak.

JOTO PR did not create First Ascent’s scientific credibility or mission.

The evidence and purpose already existed.

Anti-PR® made them visible, accessible, and relevant to wider audiences.

The Challenge

First Ascent Biomedical is a Functional Precision Oncology company focused on helping physicians make more informed, patient-specific cancer treatment decisions.

Its xDRIVE® platform combines ex vivo live-cell drug sensitivity testing, genomics, individualized machine learning, and clinical evidence to provide additional insight into which therapies may be more promising for a patient’s unique cancer biology.

But the category was still not widely understood.

Much of the precision-oncology conversation centered on genomic testing. First Ascent needed to explain why observing how living cancer cells respond to potential therapies could add useful patient-specific evidence without suggesting that genomics was outdated or that technology should replace physician judgment.

The central idea needed to be clear:

Genomics Is Essential, but Incomplete

First Ascent also risked being understood as simply another tumor test or diagnostic assay.

Its larger opportunity was to be recognized as a decision-support platform combining live tumor biology, genomics, individualized machine learning, clinical evidence, and physician interpretation.

The challenge was not a lack of science.

It was a visibility and understanding gap.

The Anti-PR Strategy

JOTO PR translated First Ascent’s scientific and clinical work into timely, accessible narratives that journalists and wider audiences could immediately understand.

The messaging centered on four themes:

Define Functional Precision Oncology

The campaign helped explain Functional Precision Oncology as an additional layer of evidence for treatment decisions one that examines how a patient’s living cancer cells respond to potential therapies alongside genomic information.

The objective was to make an emerging scientific category understandable without oversimplifying it.

Genomics Is Essential, but Incomplete

Rather than attacking an established pillar of precision oncology, the strategy built a complementary narrative.

Genomics provides important molecular information about a tumor.

Functional testing can add direct evidence about how an individual patient’s living cancer cells respond.

This gave First Ascent a differentiated position while preserving the importance of genomic information.

Connect AI to Living Biology

AI was not positioned as the breakthrough by itself.

Instead, JOTO PR connected individualized machine learning to First Ascent’s broader scientific approach: live tumor response data, drug sensitivity testing, genomics, and clinical evidence.

This positioned AI as part of a patient-specific decision-support system rather than another generic technology claim.

Give the Mission a Larger Platform

First Ascent had something technology alone could not provide: a deeply human reason for the work.

Foote’s experience losing his son helped explain why the company existed and why more individualized cancer treatment information mattered. First Ascent’s own story describes how his son’s cancer returned, how the family was told available options had been exhausted, and how that experience ultimately led to the company’s founding.

The campaign connected that human purpose with founder, patient, caregiver, and pediatric-cancer narratives without substituting emotion for scientific evidence.

This positioning presented First Ascent not merely as a company with a new technology, but as a mission-driven organization working to advance more individualized cancer treatment decision-making.

Media Proof

Featured Media

MSN | Yahoo! News | CBS Atlanta | Authority Magazine | South Florida Business Journal | KENS-TV | FOX 25 | WPRI-TV

In the designed version, display the outlet logos as a horizontal logo strip rather than a long written list.

Selected Highlights

• MSN and Yahoo! News amplified First Ascent’s founder and childhood-cancer narrative into large mainstream audiences, extending the mission beyond specialist healthcare media.
• Authority Magazine provided thought-leadership platforms for First Ascent executives, including Jim Foote’s feature on what people need to understand about cancer.
• South Florida Business Journal covered the launch of First Ascent’s Miami cancer laboratory, connecting the company’s scientific story with operational and commercial growth.
• CBS Atlanta added broadcast visibility for Dr. Maggie Fader, while KENS-TV, FOX 25, and WPRI-TV extended the campaign into television conversations around pediatric cancer, personalized cancer care, and AI-enabled cancer research.
• Specialist outlets including Medical Design Briefs, Onco’Zine, Pharmaphorum, and DOTmed Healthcare Business News reinforced First Ascent’s credibility within medtech, oncology, pharmaceutical, and healthcare audiences.

The value was not one isolated placement.

It was the accumulation of recognizable mainstream coverage and highly relevant industry media around the same emerging category and mission.

The Strategic Shift

Before the campaign, First Ascent could easily have been reduced to a narrow description:

“First Ascent tests tumors.”

As the communications strategy evolved, the narrative moved toward:

“First Ascent Biomedical is building a smarter oncology decision system.”

That system brought together:

Live Tumor Biology + Genomics + Individualized Machine Learning + Clinical Evidence

The updated strategy deliberately moved beyond “tumor testing” toward Functional Precision Oncology, physician decision support, AI + biology convergence, patient-specific evidence, and a broader healthcare-modernization narrative.

That distinction matters.

First Ascent was no longer simply explaining what its technology does.

It was establishing why its approach matters to the future of cancer treatment decisions.

The campaign did not manufacture scientific authority or purpose.

It moved both into the conversations where they could create greater impact.

The Result

JOTO PR Disruptors turned First Ascent Biomedical’s complex scientific story and deeply personal mission into measurable media visibility.

123 Media Placements

3.88 Billion Potential Audience

$6.79 Million in Documented Publicity Value

Beyond those figures, the campaign established a foundation of message repetition, category education, media credibility, and wider familiarity with Functional Precision Oncology.

First Ascent’s public narrative increasingly connected the company with patient-specific evidence, live tumor biology, genomics, individualized machine learning, and a more informed approach to cancer treatment decision-making.

The expertise was already there.

The mission was already deeply personal.

Anti-PR gave both a larger platform.

Because breakthrough science can only influence healthcare when people know about it.

And category leadership becomes powerful when the right audiences can see it, understand it, and trust it.

Call to Action

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