Advances in early stage ovarian cancer diagnosis

HealthLinx has reached an agreement with The University of Liverpool (UK) to in-license patented biomarkers and antibodies that show efficacy in detecting grade one and two ovarian cancer.

The technology has the potential to be the world’s first commercially available, multi-marker, early-stage ovarian cancer diagnostic. Preliminary studies indicate detection of early stage ovarian cancer (grade one and two) and discrimination between the two major types of ovarian cancer (mucinous and serous tumours). No product with either of these benefits is available in the world today.

HealthLinx announced on 15 November the phase II biomarker results for its first-generation OvPlex panel, with an increase in diagnostic efficiency of ovarian cancer by greater than 15% compared to CA125.

“Our first-generation OvPlex panel will be made available to the Australian market in Q2, 2008 by our partner ARL Pathology,” said Nick Gatsios, managing director of HealthLinx.

“And as a company, we will strive to develop a test to detect the disease at the early stages, where it is treatable and survival rates will be significantly increased.”

The compay’s second-generation ovarian cancer diagnostic (OvPlex 2G) is being designed to detect early stage ovarian cancer, identify tumour type and be efficient for community-base screening. It will be based on a compound called HTX-005, which is present in ovarian cancer samples and shows high sensitivity and specificity in detecting tumour types of grade one and two ovarian cancer.

OvPlex 2G will be in a phase 1 trial in mid 2008.