InterVenn Biosciences, South San Francisco, Calif, has reached multiple milestones in advancing the world’s first glycoproteomics-based lab-developed test (LDT). The company’s first diagnostic product, a noninvasive liquid biopsy test for ovarian cancer, will have final data from its initial clinical trial in the first half of 2021, and InterVenn’s on-site laboratory has recently received CLIA certification to make its tests available to the medical community. 

InterVenn has recently been issued a key patent covering its core foundational technology on artificial intelligence and machine learning for the identification and use of glycopeptides as biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment monitoring.

The company is also working to develop a test predicting response to immuno-oncology therapies. Results from three separate studies indicate that the company’s liquid biopsy assay platform is uniquely capable of successfully predicting patient response across the class of checkpoint inhibitors, outperforming all other currently available predictive tests.

“Checkpoint inhibitors are extremely powerful and highly effective cancer drugs, but only 20% to 30% of cancer patients ultimately respond to them. Currently, there is no effective way to predict likely responders, which results in many patients suffering from serious side effects while deriving no benefits, and an increasingly unsustainable burden of healthcare expenditures,” says Klaus Lindpaintner, MD, chief scientific officer and chief medical officer of InterVenn. “There is a tremendous need to develop a solution with real clinical utility. We’re highly encouraged by our early results and feel extremely bullish about scaling up these studies, expanding them to explore additional indications and drug molecules, and bringing a clinical test to patients as quickly as possible.”

In the course of planned 2021 studies, InterVenn will continue to engage in a range of partnerships to develop predictive and companion diagnostic claims. InterVenn has established additional collaborations with leading US and international oncology centers to further explore the predictive power of blood-based glycoproteomic signatures. 

“We’ve been engaged in a range of pilot studies with a number of partners across a spectrum of applications, and we continue to see extremely impressive results differentiating clinical phenotypes based on glycoproteomic profiles, giving us the confidence to accept unknown, blinded samples from collaborators—and being able to correctly identify the signatures each and every time,” says Aldo Carrascoso, chief executive officer of InterVenn. “Together with our partners, we continue to be impressed and inspired by how powerfully glycoproteomics recognizes and distinguishes health, disease, drug response, and other phenotypes.”

For more information, visit InterVenn Biosciences.