This story has been updated with additional information from Nucleix.
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Israeli cancer diagnostics firm Nucleix has announced a €50,000 ($56,998) Horizon 2020 grant from the European Commission to support commercial development of lung and colorectal cancer screening products.
The Rehovot-based firm will use the funds to continue developing cancer screening tests based on its EpiCheck platform, which identifies DNA methylation patterns extracted from urine and blood samples.
The company's lead product is the PCR-based Bladder EpiCheck urine test for monitoring bladder cancer, which consists of a panel of 15 proprietary epigenomic biomarkers and the algorithms used to analyze the panel data. Nucleix launched a European pivotal trial in December 2015 to evaluate Bladder EpiCheck's ability to detect recurrent urothelial cell carcinoma. The firm told GenomeWeb in an email that it expects the trial to end in the second quarter of 2016.
In 2014 Nucleix raised $5 million, which was also to be used for the commercial development of EpiCheck tests.