By Diagnostics World News Staff
February 12, 2016 | Immunovia, a Swedish firm developing microarrays with biomarker signatures, this week announced the latest of three recent collaborations to validate an early detection blood test for pancreatic cancer in a prospective clinical study.
Immunovia’s IMMray PanCan-d blood test is based on the company’s IMMray technology platform for antibody microarray analysis. The pancreatic cancer test will be the only blood-based test available for early detection of pancreatic cancer in stage I and stage II when the cancer is still resectable, the company says. Diagnosing patients in stage I and stage II could increase the overall 5-year survival rate from 3-4% to approx. 59%.
“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and difficult neoplastic disease to diagnose,” said Carlos Cordon Cardo, Chairman for the Department of Pathology at Mount Sinai Health System in a press release. “When detected at an early stage, it can be treated successfully, rendering cures similar to other cancers. However, late stages are usually fatal. It is for this and other reasons that a test for early detection is critical. IMMray PanCan-d has the potential of being such tool, and supporting a large validation study to reveal its clinical value is part of the mission of our institution and society at large. Furthermore, this collaboration enhances our program in the development of the liquid-biopsy platform and individualized predictive medicine.”
Mount Sinai Health System and the other sites will work to develop the prospective study clinical protocol, obtain the required approvals to recruit study subjects and follow up over a period of three years, delivering the blood samples for analysis and finally disseminating the results to clinicians and patients.
“We are excited to collaborate with Mount Sinai on the first prospective study of the IMMray PanCan-d test for early detection of pancreatic cancer,” said Mats Grahn, CEO, Immunovia in a press release. “Mount Sinai’s innovative approach to research and clinical care, scientific excellence, robust clinical research, and beneficial community impact, make it the best choice for this collaboration. We anticipate that upon successful outcome, the data from this prospective clinical trial will be used in regulatory and reimbursement applications of our test.”
In addition to the collaboration with Mount Sinai Health System, Immunovia announced in October a partnership with Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, and in January a collaboration with University of Liverpool, UK.