Stroke

Stroke is a global problem and one of the leading causes of death, accounting for 167,000 deaths annually in the USA, rating it the 3rd highest cause of death (CDC Statistics). The condition is poorly diagnosed and affects approximately 4% of the population in the USA (c 11m people) but each year only approximately 700,000 Americans are diagnosed as having new or recurrent strokes. Effective treatment for stroke requires rapid diagnosis and implementation of appropriate therapy, and until now there has been no means of rapid diagnosis for stroke. Proteome Sciences has developed a panel of extremely sensitive biomarkers in blood for Point of Care and High Throughput applications.

Proteome Sciences, through a collaborative research programme with the University of Geneva, has been actively studying protein expression profiles in stroke patients since 1996 and has identified a number of novel biomarkers of disease initially in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and then in blood.

Data generated using the ProteoSHOP® toolkit were presented at the 5th World Stroke Congress in Vancouver, Canada, 23-26 June, 2004 and showed biomarkers that have been screened against large panels of serum taken from patients between 60 minutes and 24 hours following stroke. By using panels of these markers in different combinations it is possible to achieve extremely high levels of sensitivity and specificity for the rapid and accurate diagnosis of stroke within the first few hours of the event.

Commercial Development

Proteome Sciences has out-licensed on a non-exclusive basis its stroke markers in blood for use in the development and manufacture of in vitro diagnostics to BioMerieux and two other global diagnostics companies.

Partnering

Further licenses for point of care applications and for high throughput testing in clinical laboratories and on automated equipment are available.