Avant Diagnostics, Inc. (AVDX) Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Diagnostic Tech Bolstered Mightily By Amarantus Bioscience Merger

According to recent analysis out late last year from the world’s second largest publisher of premium market reports, MarketsandMarkets, the global market for biomarkers is on-track to grow at a CAGR of 13.58 percent through 2020, reaching upwards of $45.55 billion on the strength of increasing healthcare, as well as R&D spending. A key driver of this growth is the massive importance of biomarkers as an objective means for calculating a pathogenic or pharmacological response to therapeutics, or to gauge the behavior of a normal biological process. Biomarker technology continues to play a pivotal role when it comes to developing cutting-edge diagnostics for ailments such as cancer.

Indeed, the global cancer biomarkers market will continue to be one of the most active segments moving forward according to M&M, and this segment is slated to run at an 11.6 percent CAGR over the same interval. Driven by major players engaged in personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics involving biomarkers, such as global microarray market leader Affymetrix (NASDAQ: AFFX), which was recently reported as having been acquired by competitor Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO) for approximately $1.3 billion, as well as more investor-accessible players, some of whom may have at their disposal technologies that hold the potential to reshape the industry itself.

Such high-profile M&A activity at the heart of the translational research/microarray sector speaks volumes for how hot the space has become, and how much promise it holds for the future of medicine. One of the areas in oncology diagnostics that bears consideration is ovarian cancer, due to the specific challenges and concerns associated with the space. American Cancer Society data indicates that roughly 21,300 women in the U.S. alone were diagnosed with ovarian cancer last year, leading to approximately 14,200 tragic deaths. With an overall five-year survival rate of only 45 percent, ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death among women, and the risk is highest in women over the age of 55.

Given the high five-year survivability rate of around 93 percent for ovarian cancer, if it is detected in the early stage in which the symptoms are often ignored – compared to an only 18 percent five-year survivability rate if it is detected in later stages – the benefits of advanced warning and pre-symptomatic screening using a definitive, cost-effective diagnostic test cannot be overstated. This is especially true for patients who are found to have platinum-resistant/refractory ovarian cancer, as such patients have an extremely poor prognosis and may also be classed as having chemotherapy-resistant/refractory ovarian cancer.

The standard approach to ovarian cancer utilizes the combination of a platinum compound such as Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (NYSE: BMY) (OTC: BMYMP) Platinol® (cisplatin) or Paraplatin® (carboplatin), and a Taxane, such as Sanofi’s (NYSE: SNY) Taxotere® (docetaxel), or Phyton Biotech’s Taxol® (paclitaxel). But for patients with platinum-resistant/refractory ovarian cancer, early detection is really the brass ring, even with such good news out recently as Merck (NYSE: MRK) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) receiving FDA approval for the first Phase III study of avelumab, an investigational, fully human PD-L1 (programmed death-ligand 1) inhibitor that could emerge as a treatment for platinum-resistant/refractory ovarian cancer.

Suffice it to say, this is a market ripe for a simplified microarray-based blood test for early detection of ovarian cancer, including tests like Avant Diagnostics’ (OTCQB: AVDX) OvaDx®, which possesses numerous advantages over the standard CA 125 protein biomarker test for ovarian cancer. Advantages include a sample size of only a few drops and the elimination of needle blood draws, factors which allow for high-volume screening throughput at even smaller facilities. A simplified test like OvaDx, which uses sample shipping and storage on room temperature blood cards and nevertheless yields definitive diagnostic results that allow for detection of early stage ovarian tumor cell development, is a real triumph for women’s health. OvaDx could be a game changer for the $2 billion plus ovarian cancer diagnostic market and might just put AVDX in the immuno-oncology pole position.

The recent announcement that AVDX has entered into an LOI with regenerative medicine, neurology and orphan disease-focused Amarantus Bioscience Holdings (OTCQX: AMBS) to merge the wholly-owned diagnostics subsidiary of Amarantus into AVDX is further proof of how hot the sector is overall. Amarantus Diagnostics’ MSPrecise®, a neuroimmunology-based sequencing assay for multiple sclerosis, also adds mightily to AVDX’s already promising diagnostics footprint. The $1 billion market potential possible in addressing the woefully inaccurate diagnostics market for multiple sclerosis stands to make the combined company a force to be reckoned with. Adding to this emerging diagnostic juggernaut’s appeal is the $3 billion potential of Amarantus Diagnostics’ LymPro Test® for Alzheimer’s disease, another early detection-focused marvel that could revolutionize treatment options for Alzheimer’s patients.

For more information, visit www.avantdiagnostics.com

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