NEW YORK – Valted Seq said on Thursday that it has obtained exclusive rights from Johns Hopkins University to evaluate biomarker assays that could be used to diagnose and manage neurodegenerative diseases.
Under the agreement, Valted Seq will have rights to develop biomarker assays focused on the poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) and c-Abl pathways. The PAR assays can be used to diagnose Parkinson's disease from cerebral spinal fluid, serum, or plasma exosomes and the c-Abl pathway assays can diagnose Parkinson's and other α-synucleinopathies from serum or plasma exosome samples.
"Our sponsored research agreement with Johns Hopkins has been highly productive and the obvious next step was to bring this technology in house. This exclusive agreement will allow us to evaluate and optimize multiple PAR and c-Abl pathway biomarker assays for potential use in clinical applications," Isabell Loftin, Valted Seq's VP of diagnostics, said in a statement. Applications include screening, diagnosis, patient selection for clinical trials, disease progression monitoring, and evaluation of therapies for Parkinson's and related diseases, she added.
Founded in September 2020, Valted Seq is a subsidiary of South Korea's D&D Pharmatech. The firm is building a repository of single-cell sequencing data from patients with neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
"There are currently no clinically accepted biomarker assays available for Parkinson’s disease," said Seulki Lee, Valted Seq's chairman and CEO of D&D Pharmatech, in a statement. "An assay capable of identifying disease-relevant biomarker results would provide high medical value to these patients."