LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Oxford BioDynamics announced on Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with Imperial College London, to utilise its latest 'EpiSwitch' biomarker signature for the blood-based diagnosis of prostate cancer in the 'PROSTAGRAM' trial.
The AIM-traded firm described the trial as a prostate cancer screening trial, using a group of radiological approaches Including MRI and ultrasound, which was being led by Hashim Ahmed, professor and chair of urology at Imperial College London, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, TUF and BMA.

It said the aim of the PROSTAGRAM trial was to assess the role of a number of diagnostic approaches, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and multiparametric ultrasound to screen for prostate cancer.

Under the terms of the agreement, Oxford BioDynamics said it would evaluate the participants enrolled in the study for prostate cancer, with its EpiSwitch proprietary diagnostic biomarker assay.

Its assay for prostate cancer was based on six epigenetic systemic blood-based markers, and was developed in collaboration with Mathias Winkler, consultant urological surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; and professor Dmitry Pshezhetskiy, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia.

The assay was developed across several cohorts of more than 290 patients, with varying disease stages.

Oxford BioDynamics said the assay had demonstrated "consistent sensitivity and specificity" of over 80% in three blinded validations.

In its latest format, performed in MIQE-compliant real-time PCR readouts on blood, the test demonstrated 90% sensitivity and 85% specificity, with a positive predictive value of 90%.

"Participation in this important trial into prostate cancer is a significant milestone for Oxford BioDynamics," said the firm's chief scientific officer Alexandre Akoulitchev.

"We are looking forward to contributing our EpiSwitch blood-based readouts to the comprehensive evaluation of these trial participants.

"We are delighted to join forces with a team of world-leading experts in prostate cancer, and looking forward to potentially improving the detection of prostate cancer at a curable stage by aiding in the development of prostate cancer screening programme."

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