NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Health Discovery Corp. said today that Richard Caruso, one of the firm’s board members, has resigned his position to form a new firm that intends to develop a breast cancer prognostic test based on HDC’s support vector machine technology.
Caruso, who will become a senior advisor to HDC, said in a statement that he will negotiate a license and development agreement with HDC to apply the technology to breast cancer applications. The new firm, called Smart Personalized Medicine, also intends to collaborate with MD Anderson Cancer Center on the test.
HDC will receive and undisclosed equity position in the startup as well as royalties paid on a per-test basis.
Stephen Barnhill, chairman and CEO of HDC, said that developing a prognostic test for breast cancer “requires focused attention and potentially millions of dollars in funding to succeed.” He added that since the focus of HDC has been on launching its prostate cancer test, providing rights to the breast cancer test to Smart Personalized Medicine provides “the best opportunity to achieve success for our shareholders.”