OvaGene Oncology completes license agreements with key Norwegian cancer researchers

Jul 13 2010

OvaGene Oncology Inc., a biotechnology company specializing in the development and commercialization of personalized DNA-based diagnostics for gynecologic cancer, announced today that it has completed license agreements with key Norwegian cancer researchers.  The agreements allow OvaGene to validate two new promising genomic technologies with the intention of developing these into clinical laboratory tests. Validation studies and the subsequent migration of both tests to the new OvaGene CLIA lab are expected to occur over the next twelve to eighteen months.

The first technology, licensed from the University of Bergen Tech Office BTO (Bergan, Norway), is a proprietary method for identifying high risk endometrial cancer patients diagnosed with early stage cancer.  Approximately 37,000 stage I or II endometrial cancer patients are diagnosed annually in the U.S.  Early stage cases are typically treated with surgery only but higher risk patients may be up-staged making them eligible to receive chemotherapy.  The BTO licensed technology has the ability to identify a molecular component in early stage patients linked with high risk.  

"If we are able to validate this set of molecular markers gynecologic oncologists will be better educated with regard to whom should be offered adjuvant therapy for early stage endometrial cancer," said Neil Finkler, M.D., OvaGene's Chief Medical Officer. "Presently, we use pathological factors to determine risk which can lead to over treatment of some groups of women with adjuvant therapy while not offering therapy to some that may benefit. Hopefully these molecular markers will allow us to better define who should be offered additional therapy and may also prove beneficial in our understanding of the role of a new class of drugs, namely pi3k inhibitors. "

The second technology, licensed from Medinnova (Oslo, Norway), is a proprietary method to determine chemoradiation resistance in cervical cancer. Cervical cancer affects approximately 11,000 women in the U.S. per year.  Currently, those patients are treated with surgery followed by radiation and platinum-based chemotherapy regimen.  The licensed technology allows OvaGene to test cervical cancer patients for chemoradiation resistance prior to the initiation of therapy.  If patients are determined to have a high risk of resistance based on the molecular assessment of the tumor, the physician can alter therapy such as including a non-platinum-based chemotherapy.  Further studies are planned to validate the technology's ability to predict chemoradiation resistance.

"Currently, stage 1B2 to IV cervical cancers are treated with radiation and platinum-based chemotherapy.  This standard therapy is also used for adjuvant treatment of cervical cancers with poor prognostic factors and positive nodes at time of radical surgery," commented Bill Ricketts, Ph.D., OvaGene's Chief Scientific Officer. "Knowing which cervical cancer patients will not respond to this standard treatment before starting therapy would allow the clinician the opportunity to offer alternative drug therapy up front rather than at time of recurrence thus potentially improving patient outcomes by avoiding treatment with ineffective therapies."

SOURCE OvaGene Oncology Inc.