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Immunovia, UK university partner to validate early detection blood test for pancreatic cancer

In line with Immunovia´s strategy to deliver the first validated test for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, the company announced that the first European site participating in its prospective clinical study for the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer will be the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Pancreatic Biomedical Research Unit, based at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Designed to validate Immunovia´s blood test, IMMray PanCan-d, the study will run for three years across sites in both the US and Europe, starting in the second half of 2016.

The NIHR Pancreatic Biomedical Research Unit in Liverpool is a leading global translational research unit dedicated to the management of pancreatic digestive diseases, such as acute and chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. The institute is the only NIHR funded specialist unit to research into pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer in the UK.

The Pancreatic Biomedical Research Unit in Liverpool will contribute together with the other sites to the development of the prospective study clinical protocol. This will involve obtaining the required approvals to recruit study subjects and following them up over a period of three years, delivering the blood samples for analysis and disseminating the results to clinicians and patients.

Immunovia CEO Mats Grahn said: "We are very pleased to enter into collaboration with Liverpool Pancreatic Biomedical Research Unit for the prospective validation of IMMray PanCan-d in Europe. This leading UK centre will play a crucial role by contributing a wealth of knowledge and providing access to the largest registry in Europe of individuals with a genetic predisposition for pancreatic cancer: The European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatitis and Familial Pancreatic Cancer (EUROPAC).

"We anticipate that upon achieving successful results we will be able to proceed with regulatory and reimbursement applications worldwide to establish our test for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer as a standard amongst pancreatologists for detecting pancreatic cancer in high-risk groups much earlier than possible today, thereby saving patient lives."

Liverpool Good Clinical Laboratory Practice Facility operational director and EUROPAC lead scientist Bill Greenhalf said: "Treatment for pancreatic cancer is improving and it could change from being a death sentence if it can be picked up early enough. Yet 80% of the patients are beyond treatment with curative intent by the time they are diagnosed. Immunovia has developed a system for early diagnosis, which needs to be further validated in a prospective study.

"The NIHR Pancreatic Biomedical Research Unit in Liverpool co-ordinates Europe’s biggest registry of individuals at high risk of pancreatic cancer and this collaboration will enable us to take a potentially lifesaving test into the clinic."

"Immunovia´s test has the potential to bring us one step closer to our vision in Liverpool University of reducing patient mortality and morbidity due to digestive diseases of the pancreas through development of new treatments and diagnostic strategies" said Dr Eithne Costello who will be the other academic lead for this collaboration.

In addition to the collaboration agreement signed with the University of Liverpool, UK, for the prospective validation of IMMray PanCan-d, Immunovia announced a partnership in October with the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, US. The third prospective study site will be announced within short.