Diagnocure Acquires Diagnostic Tests for Breast and Colon Cancer

DiagnoCure (Quebec City, Canada), a life-sciences company marketing cancer diagnostic tests and delivering lab services, has acquired Catalyst Oncology (Worcester, MA, USA) and its lead prognostic tests for breast, colon, and potentially other cancers.

The acquired tests have been validated in multiple clinical studies involving patients with five tumor types, including breast and colon. Results have shown the tests to be strong indicators for a patient's risk of disease recurrence, as well as predictors of response to certain cancer therapies, such as tamoxifen or traditional chemotherapy.

The tests measure the level of activated tyrosine phosphorylated (PY) Shc protein and p66 Shc protein in tissue specimens. The Shc proteins are involved in a number of well-documented cellular pathways that are correlated with tumor aggressiveness across many types of cancer, offering a broad opportunity for clinical testing.

Appropriate risk assessment of the cancer after initial treatment will facilitate critical treatment decisions and may increase the probability of recurrence-free survival, while avoiding ineffective treatments and related cost.

DiagnoCure intends to complete the development of the tests and conduct additional validating clinical studies. John Schafer, president and CEO of DiagnoCure, said, "The newly-acquired tests have the potential to increase clinician and patient confidence when making critical treatment decisions and will complement our GC-C-based tests for colorectal cancer, acquired earlier this year.”


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