University of Michigan Pancreatic Cancer Center, Immunovia partner up in fighting pancreatic cancer

University of Michigan Pancreatic Cancer Center has become the most recent member of the global network of prominent sites participating in the PANFAM-I prospective clinical study for the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in high risk individuals, announced Immunovia in its press release issued on Monday.

Designed to validate Immunovia ́s blood test, IMMrayTMPanCan-d, the study will run for three years across clinical sites in both the US and Europe that are highly competent in screening programs of high risk pancreatic cancer patients.

Pancreatic cancer has one of poorest survival rates of any major cancer type. The key to improve prognosis lies in early detection. Immunovia has identified the first blood based biomarker test that now will be validated in high risk individuals undergoing annual screening for early pancreatic cancer detection.

The company said that working closely with several of the most prominent pancreatic cancer authorities, it identified three main criteria for the enrolment of the sites participating in the multisite prospective study. Michigan meets all three: broad patient reach, world renowned clinical expertise in oncology and a dedicated program for pancreatic cancer. The University of Michigan Pancreatic Cancer Center is renowned for its unique collaborative approach and has the largest number of dedicated, interdisciplinary pancreatic cancer researchers in the US. The Centre was also the first to identify the pancreatic cancer stems cells responsible for disease dissemination This has led to a longstanding interest in early detection and surveillance.

Under the present agreement, the University of Michigan Pancreatic Cancer Center will contribute together with the other sites to the development of the prospective clinical study that will follow up 1000 high risk study subjects over a period of three years.

Other partners that are already included in PANFAM-1 are Mount Sinai in New York and Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, USA, IRYCIS, Madrid, Spain and the University of Liverpool, UK. Immunovia is also in discussion with several other high risk surveillance programs from Europe and USA to add them to the participant list of PANFAM-1.