CytoVas, a diagnostics company in University of Pennsylvania’s UPStart incubator program in its Center for Technology Transfer has forged an alliance with a division of diagnostic company Becton Dickinson (NYSE: BDX) to advance a blood-based diagnostic to determine personal risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
The alliance with Becton Bioscience will help CytoVas assess cardiovascular disease progression, as well as evaluate the side effects of existing and experimental medicines for cardiovascular disease.
Last year CytoVas became the first company to get funding as part of the American Heart Association’s accelerator program, an initiative designed to speed up the investigation and development of products for cardiovascular disease patients. As of February it had begun to enroll patients in a proof of concept trial for its diagnostic to evaluate an individual’s vascular health profile. The test would be administered to patients being treated for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer who may be symptom-free for cardiovascular disease and stroke but face an elevated risk for developing those condition.
CytoVas was co-founded by Dr. Emile Mohler, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-inventor of the technology, as well as Jonni Moore and Wade Rogers, of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and faculty with Perelman School of Medicine
Moore said in the statement: “The partnership with BD is a promising step in bridging the gap from research to patients for this potentially life-saving diagnostic.”
Ross Tonkens, a cardiologist and head of the American Heart Association’s Science and Technology Accelerator Fund said: “This test not only offers the promise of identifying symptom-free individuals at high risk, but could also assess the effectiveness of new therapies to prevent heart attack and stroke.”
More than 82 million people in the US have at least one type of heart or blood vessel disease, according to data from the Stroke Association. The idea is that if people who are likely to suffer strokes and heart disease earlier, there’s more time for healthier lifestyles to be adopted and reduce healthcare costs associated with hospitalization. The direct costs of medical care and therapy to treat strokes every year are estimated at $28 billion per year, with indirect costs from lost productivity and other factors estimated at $15 million per year, according to the Stroke Center at Newark, New Jersey-based University Hospital.
