17 May 2010 07:00
17 May 2010
Source BioScience plc
('Source BioScience' or 'the Company')
Source BioScience to provide companion diagnostic testing service for stomach cancer
Source BioScience plc (LSE: SBS), the provider of expert, quality services to the life science research, pharma biotech and healthcare sectors, is pleased to announce that the Company will provide a companion diagnostic testing service for stomach cancer patients in the UK.
Source BioScience is the first reference centre in the UK to provide validated HER2 status testing as a companion diagnostic for possible Herceptin (trastuzumab) therapy for stomach cancer patients.
This will allow clinicians to assess whether patients with metastatic stomach cancer have HER2 positive tumours and thereby determine which patients may benefit from treatment with Roche's Herceptin therapy and which patients definitely will not. This understanding will help clinicians determine the most appropriate therapy regime for stomach cancer patients.
The service will be conducted from the Company's laboratories in Nottingham, UK. Each sample will undergo full pathology review prior to testing, which will enable the tumour status to be determined; ensure that only tumour tissue is analysed and will guarantee the highest quality of diagnostic analysis and reporting. Results will be returned to the clinicians within five working days.
The Company continues to explore avenues to grow its companion diagnostic offering to parallel the growing demand for targeted therapies. Earlier this year Source BioScience signed an agreement with another leading pharmaceutical company to provide genetic testing for lung cancer patients.
Dr Nick Ash, Managing Director at Source BioScience said: "We are delighted to become the first validated laboratory in the UK to provide this type of companion diagnostic testing for Herceptin treatment in stomach cancer.
"It is our strategy to expand the range of diagnostic tests we provide and migrate our extensive experience in genetic analysis into diagnostic testing for healthcare. To support this we maintain first class laboratory accreditations including Clinical Pathology Accreditation ('CPA') for our diagnostic testing.
"Increasing demand for targeted therapies to improve treatment success and reduce costs is generating greater demand for companion diagnostics to accompany those therapies.
"Every year around 8,000 people are diagnosed with stomach cancer in the UK and more than 5,200 die annually from the disease. Globally, stomach cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths and yet is only the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer.
"By providing better diagnostic information for clinicians, we are able to help ensure that treatment pathways are managed more effectively, positively impacting the clinical outcome and cost effectiveness of therapy."
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For further information, please contact:
Source BioScience Dr Nick Ash, Managing Director Tel: +44 (0) 115 973 9010nick.ash@sourcebioscience.com
Bishopsgate Communications Nick Rome / Gemma O'Hara Tel: + 44 (0) 207 562 3350 www.bishopsgatecommunications.com
About Source BioScience
Source BioScience (LSE: SBS) is a highly focused healthcare and biotechnology company providing diagnostic and screening services to the healthcare community and genetic analyses and biomolecular tools and products to the life science research and pharma biotech sectors.
Its Healthcare operations provide screening and reference laboratory diagnostic testing for cancer and other diseases and additional predictive testing for treatment optimisation for clinicians and patients. Pharma Biotech Services offers support for early stage therapeutic development, offering a 'one-stop shop' from tissue pathology, immunohistochemistry, sophisticated image analysis, biomarker determination and assay development to pharmacogenomics including genotyping and gene expression analysis. Life Science Research services provide core laboratory research support from conceptualization to implementation, calling upon a wide range of cutting-edge technology platforms including an online catalogue of biomolecular tools. This incorporates DNA sequencing, whole genome amplification and a comprehensive library of genomic reagents and clones including cDNA and RNAi, as well as facilitating rapid access to high quality antibodies, cell cultures, diagnostic assays for cancer and other genetic testing, and related research tools.
The Group has its headquarters in Nottingham, UK where it operates state of the art reference laboratory facilities, with additional laboratory facilities in London, Cambridge, Oxford and Dublin, Ireland. Source BioScience is CPA, GLP and GCP accredited and is licensed by the Human Tissue Authority.
Further information about Source BioScience can be found at www.sourcebioscience.com
About companion diagnostics
Companion diagnostic tests are based on a biomarker (which may be a protein, DNA or RNA molecule), the presence or absence of which is associated with the likely efficacy of a drug or other treatment. Companion diagnostics are useful in stratifying patients into groups which are known to respond in a particular way to a drug.
About the stomach cancer HER2 test
The European Medicines Evaluation Agency ('EMEA') has recently granted Herceptin European-wide approval for use in metastatic stomach cancer. The stomach cancer HER2 test is more complex than the HER2 test for breast cancer. Validated methods and scoring systems to ascertain HER2 status in breast cancer using immunohistochemistry ('IHC') and in situ hybridisation ('ISH') are well established. Recent evidence suggests that these same techniques, with some minor modifications, are equally valid for assessing HER2 status in stomach cancer and identifying patients who can derive significant benefits from appropriate treatment.