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Uh, oh Monogram.

I've heard complaints that Trofile is too slow and misses some low level CXCR4 tropism. As a result HIV patients take too long to go on maraviroc, and some fail treatment due to missed CXCR4 tropism. Now the largest diagnostics company in the world will be marketing a faster and apparently more sensitive assay. Comments?

>>MADISON, N.J., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX - News), the nation's leading provider of diagnostic testing, information and services, announced today that it has entered into a non- exclusive license agreement for the heteroduplex tracking technology underlying Pathway Diagnostics' SensiTrop(TM) HIV co-receptor tropism test. Tropism refers to the way a virus targets host cells. A molecular-based assay for HIV co-receptor tropism will help physicians personalize therapy for HIV patients. Quest Diagnostics is the first full-service national clinical laboratory in the U.S. to license the technology. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.


"Pathway Diagnostics' heteroduplex tracking technology is an important new advance that highlights the growing importance of diagnostics to personalized medicine," said Joyce G. Schwartz, M.D., vice president and chief laboratory officer. "HIV co-receptor tropism tests can help physicians identify which patients, of the estimated 500,000 people in the U.S. being treated for HIV infection, will benefit from entry inhibitor drugs, the latest development in life-enhancing anti-retroviral therapies."

Pathway Diagnostics' SensiTrop technology is designed to enable physicians to identify the HIV co-receptor tropism status of a patient infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. HIV co-receptor tropism refers to the preference of strains of HIV to bind, activate and infect cells, promoting disease progression, according to the type of co-receptor, specifically CXCR4 (X4) and CCR5 (R5), on the surface of the cell. Entry inhibitor anti-retroviral drugs, such as Pfizer's Selzentry(TM) therapy, which is the first in its class to be FDA approved, block the CCR5 co-receptor to inhibit disease progression.

Selzentry clinical trials showed that patients infected with CXCR4 or X4/R5 viral mixtures were at an increased risk for treatment failure taking Selzentry, and therefore should not receive the drug. Pathway Diagnostics' technology detects the CXCR4 HIV co-receptor in patient samples that have as little as one percent CXCR4-tropic virus, enabling physicians to identify with a high degree of accuracy those patients with X4-tropic virus who are unlikely to benefit from, and should not receive, treatment with entry inhibitor therapies. The heteroduplex tracking technology, which is molecular based, also can yield test results within seven days of receiving a specimen, compared to up to four weeks to receive results with cellular-based methods. During the first quarter 2008, Quest Diagnostics expects to develop an in- house laboratory validated assay based on the licensed technology. Until then and beginning November 1, 2007, physicians may order SensiTrop through Quest Diagnostics, which will refer the test to Pathway Diagnostics.<<

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071026/nyf042.html?.v=101

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