Innovative Glycan-based analysis for Cancer diagnostics

ended

Worldwide, there are 1.6M new prostate cancer (PCa) cases with 366k deaths annually. Novel PCa biomarkers are needed since the best current PCa biomarker (prostate specific antigen (PSA)) lacks PCa diagnostic accuracy often resulting in mistreatment of PCa patients. The false-positive rate of PSA in blood serum is ~75%. PSA test is applied together with digital rectal examination (DRE) for preliminary screening. If the combined results are suspicious, the patients undergo a biopsy to confirm PCa. Yet, there are 74% of needless biopsies representing a significant pain for PCa patients and societal/economic burden. Based on a great commercial outcome from the ERC grant (311532) granted to Dr. Jan Tkac (co-founder/CSO of Glycanostics), the company has developed an innovative, non-invasive, early PCa diagnostics using blood serum. Instead of quantifying PSA, the innovative PCa diagnostic assay detect glycan changes on PSA protein (it discriminates between “healthy” PSA and “sick” PSA and accurately quantify the clinically relevant “sick” PSA). The technology is covered by two EPO patent applications owned by the company. The PCa diagnostic test with 95% accuracy will be applied as a 2nd opinion test in case of suspicious results from PSA & DRE examinations prior sending to a biopsy. PCa DX kit will be launched for clinics/hospital & cancer centres (B2B) and Prostate check home test for user-friendly application at homes (B2C). Our PCa diagnostic technology is unique compared to our competitors focusing on analysis of other complex biomolecules such as a level of proteins, mRNA and circulating DNA. Moreover, we have competitive advantage over competitors in terms of cost per sample, assay accuracy, simplicity of the assay enabling the home testing and high-throughput. Glycanostics consists of 7 core team members, 4 business and 4 scientific advisors making a great and highly experienced team that will bring these innovative PCa early diagnostic products to the market.