Date: 2015-05-10
Type of information: Collaboration agreement
Compound: IMMray™ PanCan-d
Company: Immunovia (Sweden) Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) (USA - OR)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology - Diagnostic
Type agreement: collaboration
Action mechanism: diagnostic test/biomarker signature. IMMray™ combines many years of clinical immunoproteomics research from Lund University, the development of unique serum protein biomarker signatures, and a state-of-the-art bioinformatics algorithm and software to interpret clinical test data from a variety of major diseases. Each blood sample is analysed and characterized using a disease-specific antibody microarray targeting a multiplex panel of biomarkers. A simple blood test thus provides all the necessary information for enabling early diagnosis, as well as for following disease progression, and/or therapy monitoring.
Disease: pancreatic cancer
Details: * On October 5th, 2015, Immunovia and the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) formed a collaboration to confirm, validate and commercialize a blood test for the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The test called IMMray™ PanCan-d analyses a patient’s immune system for early signs of disease. The collaboration will also enable researchers to explore biomarkers for a number of other cancer types. Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with a five-year survival rate of about 6 percent. It is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. When caught early, pancreatic cancer survival can be significantly improved by removing tumours surgically. Given that patients rarely exhibit symptoms until the disease has progressed, screening tests are needed to find tumors when they are amenable to curative surgery. Screening tests that look for single biological markers of the disease are ineffective because they don’t discriminate between pancreatic cancer and less deadly conditions such as chronic pancreatitis, liver cirrhosis and other gastrointestinal cancers, as well as having a too low sensitivity vs. healthy individuals. Immunovia’s test platform, IMMray™, creates a biological snapshot of an individual’s immune- response by analysing serum proteins that change as a sign of disease. The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute’s scientists will help confirm the analytes used by IMMray™ PanCan-d by validating the test’s findings on blood samples collected from consenting patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas. The collaboration between Immunovia and the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute will use the Brenden-Colson Center samples together with matched controls to run a retrospective study to verify, in a U.S. population, the findings of previous studies from Europe and China. The Brenden-Colson registry blood samples were collected at time of diagnosis, before, during and after treatment. The clinical validation study will cover about 600 samples with different stages of pancreatic cancer, matched controls as well as patients with chronic pancreatitis. After the test has been confirmed, the OHSU Knight Diagnostic Laboratories will validate it for clinical application; the laboratories are Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certified and accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). If validated, Immunovia’s pancreatic cancer specific test, IMMray™ PanCan-d, could be the first blood-based test available for early and specific diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It could provide physicians with actionable information early enough for the cancer to be removed surgically. The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and Immunovia plan to work on tests for other cancers using the same technology. The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute will also use the test platform to advance its work in developing precision cancer treatments and, eventually, the technology will be employed as part of its large-scale precision early detection research program.
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