NEW YORK – Cancer diagnostics firm AccuStem Sciences announced on Tuesday that it has acquired the license for the proprietary MicroRNA Signature Classifier (MSC) test for lung cancer screening from three Italian researchers at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori (INT) in Milan.
The blood-based test was developed by Mattia Boeri, Ugo Pastorino, and Gabriella Sozzi at the INT to help clinicians more accurately screen patients who are at risk of lung cancer. The assay evaluates 24 microRNAs to improve the diagnostic performance of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) in patients with pulmonary nodules, AccuStem said in a statement.
The test's inventors will continue to collaborate and will provide all historic data, research, and know-how related to the MSC test from certain secured creditors and interest holders relating to the test, AccuStem added.
As part of the acquisition, AccuStem will issue 3.75 million shares of its common stock to certain secured creditors and interest holders related to the test. The shares are subject to resale restrictions for 13 months from the date of the acquisition's closing. All rights, title, and interest in the intellectual property related to the MSC assay will be transferred to AccuStem.
Phoenix-based AccuStem plans to launch the test commercially in the US in 2026, it said.
Data published in 2022 in Annals of Oncology showed that patients who tested positive with both MSC and LDCT had a cumulative lung cancer incidence 30-fold higher than patents who tested negative. Negative patients' screening intervals could be safely delayed without reducing the detection of early-stage cancers, AccuStem noted.
In addition, data published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2014 showed that combining MSC with LDCT resulted in a fivefold reduction in false positives compared to LDCT alone.
"We are excited to obtain the rights to a novel test like MSC that could meaningfully benefit the millions of patients diagnosed with lung nodules each year," AccuStem CEO Wendy Blosser said in a statement. "We believe the test will provide more definitive diagnoses and peace of mind for patients beyond LDCT screening alone, with the added benefit of saving costs to the healthcare system."
AccuStem was spun off Tiziana Life Sciences in 2020 and is focused on commercializing oncology diagnostic tools, including a breast cancer recurrence test called StemPrintER.