NEW YORK (360Dx) – Arquer Diagnostics announced today that it has been awarded a £70,000 ($86,038) grant from Innovate UK to prepare for a clinical study of its ELISA-based noninvasive prostate cancer test.
The test — called MCM5-ELISA — detects minichromosome maintenance, a protein biomarker of dividing cancer cells. The planned study will evaluate the test using urine and semen samples from up to 100 patients and help the company design a larger clinical trial that is expected to start later this year.
"The MCM5-ELISA is expected to significantly reduce the number of patients undergoing invasive and costly techniques such as cystoscopy and biopsy because it offers highly accurate diagnostic results from small amounts of body fluid," Arquer CEO Nadia Whittley said in a statement.
Arquer is also developing MCM5-ELISA as a bladder cancer diagnostic and expects to launch the test for this indication in the EU in the second half of 2017.