MDxHealth SA (NYSE Euronext: MDXH), a leading molecular diagnostics company in the field of personalized cancer treatment, today announced that together with partner NovioGendix B.V., a molecular diagnostics company spun out from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUNMC), the Netherlands, has received a USD 1.1 million grant from Eurotrans-Bio to progress its bladder cancer program. Eurotrans-Bio is a European Commission initiative to foster cross border research & development between companies and academia working in the biotech industry.
"This grant provides MDxHealth and NovioGendix with the necessary resources to investigate further the unique biological indicators and patterns seen in bladder cancer derived from patient samples from the existing collaboration of NovioGendix with RUNMC," explained Dr. Jan Groen, CEO of MDxHealth.
During 2011 and 2012, MDxHealth and NovioGendix will use the funds to discover and validate tumor markers for the prediction of tumor progression into the muscle in developing invasive stage of bladder cancer using DNA methylation technologies, DNA sequencing and RNA-expression profiles on clinical samples collected from bladder cancer patients at the Urology Department of RUNMC. Such predictive markers will guide the treatment decisions for the more aggressive bladder tumors.
Bladder cancer is one of the most common cancers, with 60 to 80 percent of survivors experiencing recurrence of the disease. There is an urgent need for accurate biomarkers of the disease, its progression, and its risk of recurrence following initial treatment so that diagnostic tests can be developed to enable earlier and targeted therapeutic intervention.
Advances in bladder cancer treatments offer hope for curative care