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This Company DiagnoCure CUR.to has a test out that could eliminate the need for an often painful biopsy for detection of prostate Cancer.It is a test using a urine sample "AFTER" a digital rectal exam The company is also developing bladder and lung cancer tests. I am in for a sample today for long term hold as in IDB. Shares out 34.3 million and well over 20 million in cash. Yahoo.. finance.yahoo.com Web site here.. diagnocure.com Article below explains royalties and relationships to Gen-Probe and GlaxoSmithKline. DiagnoCure expects royalties to begin this year from prostate cancer test kit ALLAN SWIFT Sun Jan 8, 1:22 PM ET MONTREAL (CP) - Millions of men in Canada and the United States are living with the nagging fear they may have cancer of the prostate, but they don't want to suffer through another biopsy to verify. ADVERTISEMENT A small biotechnology firm in Quebec City claims it has developed a painless diagnostic tool that is two to three times more effective than current tests in determining if that cancer threat is real or benign. The PCA3 test is based on a patent held by DiagnoCure Inc. (TSX:CUR - news), whose executives believe this is the year their little research company may start to roll some modest profits as the first test kits go on the market. While full approval by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) is about two years away, PCA3 has been granted permission for clinical use. DiagnoCure's American partner - diagnostics leader Gen-Probe Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRO - news) - quietly began making its first deliveries in December to U.S physicians and laboratories. One of the few analysts to cover DiagnoCure rates its stock "out-perform", and expects it to double in value during the year as the first royalties for PCA3 start to trickle in. Cancer societies recommend all men over 50 have an annual digital rectal exam. If the walnut-sized organ is swollen - which often happens anyway with age - the doctor may recommend a blood test to check the PSA score. PSA - prostate specific antigen - is, however, a weak indicator. Based on the PSA score, the doctor may prescribe a biopsy - extracting tissue from the gland. About two-thirds of biopsies show no cancer, meaning they were unnecessary, but even then the urologist is aware the biopsy may not have detected the cancer. He may order another, especially for men under 50. "A biopsy is invasive, painful, humiliating; you lose half a day; it's no fun, nobody wants to go through that," said Pierre Desy, CEO of the biotech company, in an interview. "There's apparently in the United States over 20 million men that have had a positive PSA diagnosis, and a first negative biopsy, and tell their doctor 'no more'. They are walking in the streets now and they have those diagnostics in their pockets." An estimated 45 million PSA tests are done every year in the world, a figure that gets Desy excited. Selling DiagnoCure's PCA3 test kit at $100 a shot, "you can see the big figures; we're talking over $4 billion US." DiagnoCure's PCA3 test from urine samples claims to have a level of specificity - the ability to detect cancer - of 70 to 90 per cent, compared with plus or minus 30 per cent for PSA. The PSA test is much cheaper since it has no patents, but the PCA3 test could eliminate or reduce the need for a first or second biopsy, which in Canada costs the medicare system $800 to $1,200 each. "You can imagine the huge amount of money that is thrown into the garbage year after year because of a weak PSA count," Desy said. Under the 2003 agreement with Gen-Probe, DiagnoCure will get eight per cent royalties on net sales up to $50 million US, and 16 per cent on sales thereafter. A breakthrough came last June when British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline opted to use PCA3 to test up to 6,800 patients enrolled in a clinical trials in 37 countries, rather than use the PSA test. The trials are to test GSK's own prostate cancer therapy. Analyst Hugues Bourgeois said the selection of PCA3 by GSK is a huge vote of confidence. "Obviously when these kinds of companies invest for such a long period of time in an important study, they want to have a solid test and it's quite clear that they have done due diligence as to what was the best prostate cancer marker," said Bourgeois, with National Bank Financial. "They looked at everything including universities and other biotech companies, and they came up with the PC3, so it's getting to be known in the urological community." Another Canadian company, Miraculins Inc. of Winnipeg, is in an earlier stage of developing a prostate cancer diagnostic. Jim Charlton, vice-president, research, said his company expects to submit its diagnostic tool to the FDA later this year for approval. He said it should be able to reach an 80 per cent detection rate. "I'm not sure that their (DiagnoCure) test is the be-all and end-all," Charlton said from Winnipeg. "I think overall ours will be a better test." The U.S. Prostate Cancer Foundation says the disease is the leading cause of cancer in men in North America, and is the third most common cause of cancer death in men. It estimates that in 2006, over 232,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and over 30,000 will die from it. Some 20,500 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in Canada every year, while 4,300 men die from it. PCA3 is based on research done in the early 1990s at John Hopkins University and later at the University of Nijemegan in Holland. Desy said it will take three to five years before the product can establish itself in the market. On the Toronto Stock Exchange Friday, DiagnoCure closed off six cents at $4.15. The company is also developing bladder and lung cancer tests. news.yahoo.com | ||||||||||||||
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