A Medical Device Daily

Power3 Medical Products (Houston) said that two Continuations in Part (CIP) patent applications have been filed for BC-SeraPro Breast Cancer blood test and biomarkers by Ira Goldknopf, its president and chief scientific officer.

The applications for utility patents are titled "Identities, Specificities, and Use of Twenty Two (22) Differentially Expressed Protein Biomarkers for Blood Based Diagnosis of Breast Cancer," and "Isoform Specificities of Blood Serum Proteins and their Use as Differentially Expressed Protein Biomarkers for Diagnosis of Breast Cancer." The applications are both CIPs of a U.S. utility patent application filed on Dec. 7, 2006, involving 12 blood serum protein biomarkers.

Goldknopf said Power3's BC-SeraPro is the first blood serum test available for breast cancer, with an ongoing 100 patient validation study currently in progress.

"There is an urgent need to detect breast cancer in its earliest stages ... a need that is not being met by the current standard of care and tests," he said "In the U.S., alone, more than 200,000 women are diagnosed each year, and more than 40,000 women die because diagnosis is often late – years late – by which time the disease has progressed, decreasing the likelihood of survival."

Goldknopf said the intellectual property in the patent application consists of 22 identified protein biomarkers showing "statistically significant disease-specific abnormal concentrations in blood serum of breast cancer patients."

The abnormal blood protein differences gave high levels of sensitivity and specificity," he said, noting that, "the intellectual property as disclosed in the latest two patent applications also extends to an unexpected extra finding that the blood test can distinguish between invasive breast cancer and the earlier, harder-to-detect ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which has a different abnormal blood serum protein expression profile than invasive breast carcinoma."

Power3 is a biomedical company engaged in the commercialization of cancer and neurodegenerative disease biomarkers, pathways, and mechanisms of diseases through the development of diagnostic tests and drug targets.

In other patent news, Revolutions Medical (Mount Pleasant, South Carolina) reported that it has recently received a notice of allowance through its patent attorney Richard Moseley from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for issuance as a patent for its Rev Vac Safety syringe. This patent will be issued shortly and will be the second U.S. patent protecting its Rev Vac safety syringe.

Ron Wheet, CEO of Revolutions, said, "The timing couldn't be any better. As we await clearance from the FDA on our pre-market 510(k) application for our Rev Vac Safety Syringe, we now will have two strong U.S. patents protecting our proprietary technology. In addition, we have also spent the time and money necessary to protect our U.S. patents internationally over the last 6 months. We plan to begin volume manufacturing of our Rev Vac Safety Syringe in 1Q09 and be fully prepared to launch our sales effort upon clearance."