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Dx Focus: Unilabs and Diagnoplex Launch Colox CRC Test in Switzerland

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Unilabs and Diagnoplex last week announced the Swiss market launch of Colox, a non-invasive screening test for colorectal cancer.

Colox is offered as a service by Unilabs' clinical diagnostic service laboratories in Switzerland. Additional countries within Unilabs' network of laboratories are planned to follow in 2014.

Colox can detect colorectal cancer from a routine blood sample through all stages of disease, with a particular focus on early stages, where the prognosis is optimal, the companies said. The test quantifies a unique 29-biomarker molecular signature using quantitative RT-PCR.

The effectiveness of Colox was confirmed in a series of prospective clinical studies. Colorectal cancer screening guidelines indicate that women and men at average risk should be offered screening for colorectal cancer and adenomatous polyps beginning at age 50 years.

"We are proud to offer this important new option to efficiently screen for colorectal cancer, the second most important cancer in terms of mortality in developed countries," Diagnoplex CEO Stavros Therianos said in a statement.

"Our goal is now to make the test available to as many individuals at risk as possible," Therianos added. "In parallel with this robust commercialization effort, we are looking to raise the additional funds necessary to perform complementary clinical studies leading to a full reimbursement of Colox. To this end, we are open to discussion with interested parties."

Unilabs is a diagnostic services company that operates more than 120 laboratories and 44 radiology units in Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. It inked an agreement with Diagnoplex in September to initially market Colox in Switzerland and Sweden.

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