NEW YORK – Diagnostics firm Immunovia said Thursday it is laying off R&D employees from its operations in Lund, Sweden, in a realignment that will leave the firm better focused on US commercialization of its ImmRay PanCan-d pancreatic cancer test.
The Lund University spinout said in October it had inked a research collaboration with Swiss firm Proteomedix, and the arrangement would let Immunovia focus internal resources on commercializing the serum-based antibody microarray-based ImmRay PanCan-d test for detection of early-stage pancreatic cancer. Immunovia said Thursday that based on its early experience in that collaboration, its "need for R&D capability has changed" and it had begun consulting Swedish unions on the planned headcount reduction.
"The R&D and operations teams in Lund have delivered very strong results in developing the ImmRay PanCan-d test," CEO Philipp Mathieu said in a statement. "At the same time, Immunovia is in the early stages of commercial execution, and the scope of the in-house R&D and operations needs have changed."
The firm's pancreatic cancer test is intended to identify biomarkers of pancreatic cancer through antibodies attached to resin-coated slides in a microarray. The firm said in June 2022 that despite inconclusive results in a recent study of the test's sensitivity and specificity, it was pushing ahead toward entering the US market.
In August, the California Department of Public Health granted Immunovia a clinical and public health laboratory license that will let the state's physicians order the firm's pancreatic cancer test.