Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Rna Diagnostics Chosen for Ontario Clinical Testing Program

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Canadian molecular diagnostics company Rna Diagnostics has been chosen to have its breast cancer assay evaluated by the Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment initiative in a multi-center clinical trial, the company said on Thursday.

The company's RNA Disruption Assay (RDA) was created to determine during the early stages of breast cancer treatment if a woman is responding to chemotherapy. Rna Diagnostics was one of three companies selected for evaluation in the MaRS Excellence in Clinical Innovation and Technology Evaluation (EXCITE) program, which is an evaluation platform that was created by the MaRS Discovery District center in Toronto to speed the movement of new medical tools into clinical care.

ApneaDx and Medtronic of Canada were also chosen to participate in EXCITE.

The MaRS program prioritizes technologies that it deems the best and most cost-effective, and aims to help them secure the evidence they need for federal licensing and adoption by the federal health system.

"Through EXCITE, the RDA technology will undergo rigorous testing to generate the right evidence to prepare it for reimbursement review and market adoption,” Leslie Levin, CSO of the EXCITE program, said in a statement.

Rna Diagnostics received a C$460,000 (US$455,000) in funding from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario earlier this year. In March 2012, the Ontario Genomics Institute invested about US$101,000 in the company to support further development of the RDA test.

On Rna Diagnostics' website, the company said that clinical trials for the RDA technology are in progress in North America and Europe, and the test will be commercially available as a testing service to cancer clinics sometime this year.

Filed under

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.