Australian diagnostics firm HealthLinx said this week it has been granted a UK patent for its protein biomarker ovarian cancer diagnostic OvPlex.
The patent is the first granted to the company for its OvPlex test, which uses a five-protein panel to aid early diagnoses of ovarian cancer in symptomatic women.
HealthLinx launched OvPlex in Australia in October 2008, but temporarily suspended sales in September 2009 when its domestic distributor, ARL Pathology, was acquired by the healthcare provider Healthscope. It relaunched Australian sales of the test through Healthscope this June and also brought the test to market in the UK in February and Singapore in July (PM 12/03/2011).
HealthLinx is now looking to add another two proteins to the OvPlex's panel in hopes of improving its performance. According to the company, initial results from the first stage of an ongoing 1,150-subject study suggest that adding the two new proteins – AGR2 and HTX010 – could increase the test's accuracy (PM 12/17/2010).