OncoVista Innovative Therapies' AdnaTest BreastCancer and EMT1/StemCell products evaluated in German hospitals

Nov 11 2009

OncoVista Innovative Therapies, Inc. (Pink Sheets:OVIT) reported today that two of its proprietary products, the AdnaTest™ BreastCancer and AdnaTest EMT1/StemCell, were evaluated in Germany by the Departments of Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine (Cancer Research) at University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen and the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University Hospital of Tuebingen. The research report of those findings has been accepted for publication in the prestigious publication, Cancer Research. The Company’s AdnaTest™ BreastCancer product developed and produced by OncoVista’s wholly owned German subsidiary AdnaGen AG, is presently commercially available and CE marked in Europe.

The researchers were testing the theory that cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream may be linked with the stem cell like tumor cells that are thought to be the active source of metastatic spread from primary tumors. They were also testing the theory that these cells may undergo physical or biochemical changes which allow these cells to travel and metastize without getting affected by conventional cancer therapies.

The researchers tested blood samples from patients with metastatic breast cancer who were receiving palliative chemotherapy, antibody or hormonal therapy. Using the Company’s AdnaTest™ EMT1/StemCell product, they looked for the presence of four different EMT and stem cell biomarkers and compared these findings with the presence of circulating tumor cells and the response to therapy. The results showed that a major proportion of the circulating cancerous tumor cells in these patients had the expected biomarkers and tumor stem cell characteristics.

Based upon these results, the researchers concluded that the detection of these biomarkers in circulating tumor cells could be used to better diagnose patients, and evaluate the effectiveness or the potential risk of resistance to prescribed treatments sooner.

“OncoVista Innovative Therapies, Inc. is very pleased by the results of the findings,” said Dr. Alexander L. Weis, President and C.E.O. of OncoVista. “In these economic times, when drug companies, insurance providers, and patients are looking for better ways to test the effectiveness of oftentimes expensive, cancer therapies, a diagnostic test such as the AdnaTest™ BreastCancer and the AdnaTest EMT1/StemCell, can lead to better evaluation sooner and more cost-effective treatments with less, unnecessary suffering and toxic side-effects. In addition, it provides innovative tools for the development of novel targeted oncology drugs and companion diagnostics for evaluation of their performance.”