Syncona’s Blue Earth gets good results in prostate cancer diagnosis – Syncona has a large stake in Blue Earth Diagnostics. Blue Earth has been testing its prostate cancer diagnosis at a university hospital in Germany. The test (a radiohybrid PSMA-targeted agent, rhPSMA-7) for high-risk primary and recurrent prostate cancer was bought by Blue Earth in 2018. It wanted to extend its leading position in prostate cancer imaging (complementing its existing Axumin product), including potential new areas of high unmet need, such as early stage primary prostate cancer patients.
The Technical University at Munich has used the agent in early clinical experience in men with both primary and recurrent cancer. These retrospective analyses were presented at the Annual Urological Association’s 2019 Annual meeting:
- A retrospective analysis of 58 patients with high risk primary prostate cancer indicated that 18F-rhPSMA-7 PET/CT demonstrated sensitivity of 72% (13/18), specificity of 93% (37/40) and diagnostic accuracy 86% (50/58), when compared to histopathological findings.
- A retrospective analysis of 261 patients with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer in which 18F-rhPSMA-7 PET/CT demonstrated a detection rate of 81% (211/261) at a median PSA level of 0.96 ng/mL
Blue Earth expects to launch its own phase I/II clinical trial in 2019 calendar year.
Martin Murphy, Syncona Investment Management’s chief executive, said: “We are encouraged by these results, which provide further evidence to support the potential clinical utility of rhPSMA-7 in both high-risk primary and recurrent prostate cancer. While Blue Earth will next look to test this hypothesis in its own clinical trial, this data reinforces our belief that this PSMA agent is one of the leading assets in the space and should enable Blue Earth to extend its leading position in prostate cancer diagnostics.”
Syncona has an 89.0 per cent stake in the business with a holding value of £229.6m.
SYNC : Syncona’s Blue Earth gets good results in prostate cancer diagnosis