Immunovia, a diagnostics company focused on early detection of pancreatic cancer, today announced the successful completion of the discovery phase for the company’s next-generation test.
The discovery study, which marks a key milestone in the development of Immunovia’s next-generation test to detect early-stage pancreatic cancer, found more than a dozen proteins circulating in the blood that identified pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) stage I and stage II patients, according to the company. The study is the most comprehensive pancreatic proteomics study done to date and utilized the Olink platform to explore nearly 3,000 protein biomarkers. The new test is designed to work across all racial and ethnic groups without compromising accuracy, overcoming a key limitation of Immunovia’s first-generation test, IMMray PanCan-d.
“We are excited to announce significant progress in the development of our next-generation test to detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. In the past three months, we have significantly restructured and streamlined our operations, which is paying off with the rapid and cost-efficient development of our next-generation test,” says Jeff Borcherding, Immunovia CEO. “The discovery study was completed quickly thanks to Immunovia’s extensive repository of in-house blood samples from PDAC patients and controls. We now have identified multiple combinations of novel protein biomarkers that appear to outperform both CA19-9 and IMMray PanCan-d.”
Further reading: Immunovia Gets Accreditation from College of American Pathologists
Immunovia and its development partner Proteomedix are in the process of developing high-quality assays to accurately measure the identified biomarkers. The next step will be to complete a study to select which biomarkers to include in the commercial test, optimize the test, and assess its accuracy. Later in 2024, Immunovia will confirm the analytical validity of the test and conduct a large clinical validation study.
Immunovia has selected the ELISA platform, a commercially available platform, for the next-generation test, which will enable the company to scale testing more rapidly and at a lower cost compared to the prior proprietary IMMray platform.
