Immunovia announces collaboration with the renowned Ramon y Cajal Institute for Health Research (IRYCIS) in Madrid
LUND, Sweden, and MADRID, Spain ― Immunovia AB is delighted to announce the addition of the leading Spanish research centre Ramon y Cajal Institute for Health Research (IRYCIS) to a global network of leading sites participating in a prospective clinical study for the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in high risk individuals. Designed to validate Immunovia ́s blood test, IMMrayTM PanCan-d, the study will run for three years across sites in both the US and Europe that offer high risk pancreatic cancer screening programs.
Pancreatic cancer has one of poorest survival rates of any major cancer type. The key to improve prognosis lies in early detection. Immunovia has identified the first blood based biomarker test that now will be validated in high risk individuals undergoing annual screening for early pancreatic cancer detection.
Working closely with several leading pancreatic cancer authorities, Immunovia identified three main criteria for the enrolment of the sites participating in the multisite prospective study. IRYCIS meets all three: broad patient reach, world renowned clinical expertise in oncology and specifically in pancreatic cancer. Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal (HURyC), the core of IRYCIS, is a 1,200 bed university hospital located in Madrid and one of the largest in Spain with over 8000 employees of which 1312 are physicians. Sample storage will be managed by the biobank of the Ramon y Cajal Institute for Health Research (IRYCIS), as part of the national hospital biobank platform.
Under the agreement, IRYCIS will contribute together with the other sites to the development of the prospective clinical study, obtaining the required approvals to recruit high risk study subjects and following them up over a period of three years by imaging and providing blood samples for analysis and finally disseminating the results to clinicians and patients.
“We are very pleased to have been able to build a network of some of the most qualified centers worldwide in pancreatic cancer. Therefore, we welcome IRYCIS with their longstanding research focus on pancreatic cancer to the network as we undertake the first prospective study of the IMMrayTM PanCan-d test for early detection of pancreatic cancer. We anticipate that upon a successful outcome, the data from this prospective clinical trial will pave the way for regulatory and reimbursement applications of our test” commented Mats Grahn, CEO, Immunovia.
“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and difficult neoplastic diseases to diagnose with a high morbidity rate in late stage patients,” says Professor Carrato, Director of the Medical Oncology Department and Scientific Director at IRYCIS, who also leads the ongoing high risk surveillance of familiar pancreatic cancer program in Madrid. “Fortunately our experience as a pancreatic cancer treatment centre has taught us that early detection can lead to successful surgical intervention. For this reason an accurate reliable test is critical. We believe that IMMrayTM PanCan-d has the potential of being such a tool and are delighted to join the study network”, concludes Professor Carrato.
Other partners that are already included in PANFAM-1, the prospective validation study of Immunovia´s IMMrayTM PanCan-d, are Mount Sinai in New York and Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, USA and the University of Liverpool, UK. Immunovia conducts collaboration agreement discussions with several other high risk surveillance programs from Europe and USA to add them to the participant list of PANFAM-1.
For more information, please contact:
Mats Grahn
Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Immunovia
Tel.: +46-70-5320230
Email: mats.grahn@immunovia.com
Soraya Pérez
Communication, Hospital Ramón y Cajal (HRC)
Tel.: +34 91 336 89 32 / +34 91 336 90 67
Email: soraya.perez@salud.madrid.org / comunicacion.hrc@salud.madrid.org
About Immunovia
Immunovia AB was founded in 2007 by investigators from the Department of Immunotechnology at Lund University and CREATE Health, the Center for Translational Cancer Research in Lund, Sweden. Immunovia’s strategy is to decipher the wealth of information in blood and translate it into clinically useful tools to diagnose complex diseases such as cancer, earlier and more accurately than previously possible. Immunovia´s core technology platform, IMMray™, is based on antibody biomarker microarray analysis. The company is now performing clinical validation studies for the commercialization of IMMray™ PanCan-d that could be the first blood based test for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. In the beginning of 2016, the company started a program focused on autoimmune diseases diagnosis, prognosis and therapy monitoring. The first test from this program, IMMray™ SLE-d, is a biomarker signature derived for differential diagnosis of lupus, now undergoing evaluation and validation. (Source: www.immunovia.com)
This information is information that Immunovia AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above.
Immunovia’s shares (IMMNOV) are listed on Nasdaq First North in Stockholm and Wildeco is the company’s Certified Adviser. For more information, please visit www.immunovia.com.
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