Someone else is looking for a Universal Cancer Marker. This is from Technology Park.
Universal Cancer Detection Test
Case for a Universal Test
Current cancer markers are not used as the sole method to diagnose cancer due to the following limitations that prevent tests for these markers from functioning as wholly effective screens for many cancers:
(1) Currently available markers are not 100% specific to a particular type of cancer, indicating that other, non-cancerous conditions can also cause an increase in certain cancer markers which results in a false positive
(2) Many markers are restricted to only certain cancers
(3) The same marker is not always expressed on every patient’s cancer, even if it is related to the same organ, indicating that the marker does not have a high sensitivity for detecting a particular cancer
(4) The detection of “normal” levels of a cancer marker can occasionally be ambiguous
(5) At present, there is a perceived lack of effective cancer markers for many cancer types. For example, elevated levels of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a marker for prostate cancer, do not always signal a malignant condition. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) reports that only 25% to 30% of men who express higher-than-normal amounts of PSA in the blood actually have prostate cancer, as benign prostate conditions, such as inflammation, can also cause an increase in PSA levels.
Our client believes that the ideal cancer marker, yet to be commercialized, would be a molecule that is expressed on all cancer cells regardless of type, but not in healthy or benign tumor cells.
The Cancer Marker
This new cancer marker is found to be present on cancer cells, but not on most healthy or benign tumor cells. As a result, this marker is less likely to return a false positive test result. False positives cause patients to undergo unnecessary and potentially costly biopsy tests.
Types of Tests Available
Our client has two types of tissue tests which have been developed and serum tests which uses ELISA, chemiluminescence immunoassay or radioimmunoassay. The company is also developing a rapid, point-of-care cancer detection system for doctor's office and for developing countries such as India and China.
Market Opportunities
The global annual oncology market is currently estimated at around $52 billion dollars and growing at around 5% per year.
Global annual diagnostics market is estimated at around $26 billion annually. Within the diagnostics market, cancer testing is estimated to be at roughly over $2 billion per year. Cancer testing is dominated by serum-based cancer markers, which accounts for about half of the total cancer testing markets, with roughly 100 million serum screening tests being performed each year. Cancer testing is one of the fastest growing amongst the diagnostics testing market.
Next Steps
Our client is seeking licensing, strategic, and development partners around the world to get these tests approved and marketed in various parts of the world.
