Tuesday, July 15, 2008

DNAR lands breast cancer test license

By Mass High Tech Staff

The DNA Repair Company, a Boston-based cancer treatment company that emphasizes customized care, has been granted exclusive licensing rights for a breast cancer diagnostic test developed at Helsinki University Central Hospital in Finland and licensed through Licentia Ltd., a Finnish technology transfer company.

The diagnostic test, intended for patients with breast cancer, predicts patients’ likely response to standard anthracycline-containing chemotherapy treatment, which may then guide oncological treatments to standard or alternative routes.

DNAR intends to use the tool in combination with the NQ01 enzyme, which the company says protects cells from oxidative stress and can indicate a variant enzyme that determines general patient survival rate with the standard anthracycline-based chemotherapy treatment.

The diagnostic discovery was made by Dr. Heli Nevanlinna at Helsinki University Central Hospital and Dr. Jiri Bartek at the Danish Center Society in Copenhagen, Denmark.