NEW YORK (360Dx) – Mayo Clinic Laboratories and Breath Diagnostics said today that they are collaborating to develop clinical diagnostic tests that use patient breath samples to identify biomarkers that can predict a spectrum of diseases.
The two organizations said that they will focus first on developing a test that can detect lung cancer.
Financial and other terms of the collaboration agreement were not disclosed.
Under their collaboration, the organizations will develop Breath Diagnostics' OneBreath microreactor technology to capture specific cancer biomarkers from a single breath and provide results in less than 24 hours. The OneBreath lung cancer test is being developed to characterize indeterminate pulmonary nodules and enable monitoring for potential cancer recurrence after surgery.
Breath Diagnostics President and CEO Brian Ennis said in a statement that some lung cancer diagnostic tools can be expensive, and the firm's test could provide a lower cost alternative. Many patients require repeated follow-up computed tomography and positron emission tomography scans or invasive procedures such as needle biopsies, he noted.
As part of the collaboration, Mayo Clinic Laboratories — the global reference laboratory of Mayo Clinic — will provide mass spectrometry services and validation for the development of the OneBreath test.
Louisville, Kentucky-basedBreath Diagnostics was formed in October 2014 to commercialize a breath analysis platform originally developed by scientists at the University of Louisville, which continues to support research and development activities.
According to the firm's website, patients conduct the OneBreath test by exhaling across a patented silicon microreactor chip that selectively and irreversibly captures exhaled carbonyl compounds produced as a result of a cancer's metabolism. The small microreactor volume concentrates the carbonyl compounds 10,000-fold and they are then eluted and analyzed using mass spectrometry.