Source: www.marketwatch.com
Category: Patent Application
NEW YORK, Aug 03, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Biotechnology company MabCure, Inc. /quotes/comstock/11k!mbci (MBCI 0.62, -0.03, -4.62%) today announced the company has filed a provisional patent application for its ovarian cancer diagnostic antibodies with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The filing was based on positive results of a recent study that showed MabCure's tumor-specific monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) successfully identified ovarian cancer in blood (94 percent) and distinguished it from benign tumors of the ovaries or healthy blood obtained from men and women. The patent application covers a panel of MAbs, each of which is capable of diagnosing ovarian cancer, and several that can correctly distinguish between ovarian cancer and benign tumors.
"Filing the patent on these important discoveries is a significant step towards securing our intellectual property position and moving forward with potential strategic relationships and commercialization of what would be a highly specific serum diagnostic test for ovarian cancer," said Amnon Gonenne, Ph.D., CEO of MabCure.
In a blinded study of 54 blood samples, MabCure's MAbs correctly diagnosed 16 of the 17 ovarian cancers with a diagnostic sensitivity of 94 percent and 100 percent specificity. The samples were comprised of 17 patients with ovarian cancer, 5 patients with benign tumors of the ovaries, 24 healthy young females and 8 males.
"Beyond the value of our test to diagnose ovarian cancer in a highly accurate manner and with no false positives, the potential value of our proprietary MAbs is also in helping to identify tumor-specific antigens or cancer-specific targets for the ultimate treatment of ovarian cancer," said Gonenne.
