NEW YORK (360Dx) – Mayo Clinical Laboratories and Numares said today that they are collaborating to develop clinical diagnostic tests that use nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to detect cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, liver cancer, and other diseases.
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The collaborators said that they anticipate developing tests that measure and analyze metabolic constellations, or clusters of risk factors, derived from clinical diagnostic tests performed on patient samples, such as blood or urine.
Combinations of biomarkers — considered in relation to each other — can provide clinically actionable information, and NMR technology can accurately and precisely quantify metabolites "to find meaningful combinations of biomarkers," the developers said.
The Numares approach uses artificial intelligence to analyze data from clinical studies and machine learning to distinguish which metabolite constellations are meaningful. It models mathematical equations for the interpretation of the biomarker sets.
The firm's Axinon renalTX-Score-U100 is a commercially available and CE-marked product that analyzes metabolic constellations.
Physicians are using the test to help them identify kidney transplant recipients at risk of transplant rejection, based on a constellation of metabolites measured in patients' urine. Further, the company is exploring the use of metabolite constellations for the diagnosis of bladder cancer, the early detection of liver cancer, and measurement of kidney function.
The developers said that they anticipate the first test that Mayo Clinic Laboratories will offer using Numares’ technology will measure lipoproteins. The Numares lipoprotein method measures both LDL cholesterol and LDL particles associated with heart disease.