NEW YORK — BioMark Diagnostics said on Tuesday that it has received a C$825,000 (US$685,636) grant to develop an early-stage lung cancer screening assay.
According to British Columbia-based BioMark, the assay is being developed under a two-year partnership with Phytronix Technologies and researchers from Laval University, the Metabolomics Innovation Centre, and Saint-Boniface Research Center.
The collaborators will validate BioMark's liquid biopsy platform and proprietary biomarker panel for the detection of early-stage lung cancer in over 1,200 individual samples from the University Institute of Cardiology and Respirology of Quebec, a University of Laval affiliate. The work is also expected to identify additional metabolites that could be included in the assay to improve its specificity.
"This is an important project for BioMark as it gears up for the introduction of lung cancer biomarkers that can be incorporated into a screening program across Canada, beginning in Quebec, and later globally," BioMark CEO Rashid Ahmed Bux said in a statement.
The grant, which was awarded to BioMark subsidiary BioMark Diagnostic Solutions, includes funding from the Consortium for Industrial Research and Innovation in Medical Technology, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research — Institute of Cancer Research, and the Brain Canada Foundation.