LUND, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Immunovia AB (STO:IMMNOV) announced today that the company has entered into an agreement with a large multinational life science company to run joint studies aimed at expanding the applications area of IMMray™, to autoimmune diseases. The market for SLE diagnosis is large as it is estimated that 5 million people suffer from SLE worldwide, with 100,000 new cases reported every year. As one of the most difficult to diagnose and monitor autoimmune diseases, SLE is also known as “the great imitator” because its symptoms are similar to other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, vasculitis, Sjögrens syndrome, thyroid and, blood disorders. Currently there is no single serological and/or urinary test available to clinicians to diagnose SLE.
The two studies are due for completion during 2016. The first is a randomized blind study on the IMMray™ SLE-d platform to further validate Immunovia´s current results. The second study will compare an SLE cohort with patients with similar symptoms, but not autoimmune diseases.
“This agreement further strengthens and complements the previously announced collaboration in autoimmunity with Lund University and we find the market prospects very attractive,” said Mats Grahn, CEO, Immunovia. “We are looking forward to work closely with acknowledged leaders in this challenging field to evaluate and further refine our blood based antibody array for improved SLE diagnosis.”
Read more about Immunovia and IMMray™ technology: www.immunovia.com
About Immunovia
Immunovia AB was founded in 2007 by investigators from the Department of Immunotechnology at Lund University and CREATE Health, the Center for Translational Cancer Research in Lund, Sweden. Immunovia’s strategy is to decipher the wealth of information in blood and translate it into clinically useful tools to diagnose complex diseases such as cancer, earlier and more accurately than previously possible. Immunovia´s core technology platform, IMMray™, is based on antibody biomarker microarray analysis. The company is now performing clinical validation studies for the commercialization of IMMray™ PanCan-d that could be the first blood based test for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. In the beginning of 2016, the company started an autoimmunity diseases diagnosis prognosis and therapy monitoring program, IMMray™ SLE-d being the first biomarker signature that is now under evaluation and validation. (Source: www.immunovia.com)
Immunovia’s shares (IMMNOV) are listed on Nasdaq First North in Stockholm and Wildeco is the company’s Certified Adviser. For more information, please visit www.immunovia.com.
About Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) also known as “lupus” It is estimated that 5 Million people suffer of SLE worldwide, with 100,000 new cases every year. Due to the challenge of diagnosing correctly SLE patients, the incidence of new cases has been reported to range between 1 and 10 per 100,000 person-years, while overall prevalence varies between 20 and 70 per 100,000. A recent US study estimated 1,500,000 US SLE patients (Lupus Foundation of America, Center for disease control and prevention: SLE). In Sweden, there are approximately 5000 SLE patients with 400 new patients diagnosed per year.
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com