NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — Vermillion has licensed a biomarker panel from Stanford University that could be used to assess the risk of peripheral artery disease, the company said today.
The agreement gives Vermillion exclusive rights to develop and commercialize a blood-based PAD test, which would use the multi-marker panel to stratify individual risk for developing the disease.
The company said PAD, which can result in complications such as gangrene, heart attack, stroke, and death, may affect as many as 12 million Americans.
The agreement builds on an existing collaboration between Vermillion (formerly called Ciphergen) and Stanford on PAD biomarker development. Last January, Ciphergen said it had signed an agreement with Quest to develop a blood-based test for the disease through a partnership with the university.
Vermillion, based in Fremont, Calif., said today that it also worked with Stanford to conduct a 540-patient, collaborative clinical evaluation study of the biomarker panel to classify individuals into high- and low-risk groups for PAD.
The company said the results of the study will be published in a peer-reviewed clinical journal “in the coming months.”
Financial terms of the biomarker licensing agreement were not released.