ONI BioPharma Inc has entered a Collaboration Agreement with a major international diagnostics company regarding ONI’s unique biomarkers for early, middle and late stage colorectal cancer. Terms of the agreement have yet to be disclosed.
ONI BioPharma scientists used its dynamic diagnostic platform, PCMAT, to discover proteins that are specifically expressed when healthy bowel cells become cancerous. The discovery of these novel colorectal cancer biomarkers can lead to new ways to diagnose and treat this disease. They also can be used to determine the success or failure of different treatment methods.
The Company recently filed a US patent application covering its collection of novel proteins and genes that are specifically expressed in colorectal cancer cells. Partial funding for this project was provided through a competitive Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute.
The Company’s President and CEO, Stanley B. Stein, stated that, "PCMAT and ONI’s other diagnostic platform PIVIAT are extremely powerful technologies that can be applied to a limitless range of diseases, including those that afflict humans, animals and plants. This Collaboration Agreement validates the economic value of the Company’s PCMAT™ target identification platform technology. The goal is to provide and test targets that meet a critical worldwide need for better diagnostic test over the entire range of disease."
The Company is currently engaged in a strategic analysis of the business model for its diagnostics franchise in order to optimize the shareholder return from its powerful PIVIAT and PCMAT platforms. Methods for rapid, in-house validation of novel diagnostic targets are being developed and are expected to be in place in the second quarter of 2009.
