A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Corgenix Medical (Broomfield, Colorado), a developer of diagnostic test kits, has received notification of European Patent Office (EPO) approval for technology to which Corgenix holds exclusive worldwide licensing rights.

McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario), is the owner of the patent covering the aspirin resistance measurement method. Corgenix has licensed this technology from McMaster and is presently developing products to capitalize on the European protected technology. The patented technology is also related to Corgenix’ AspirinWorks test kit, which received FDA clearance in 2007.

The EPO patent approval covers the ability to assess a patient’s resistance to the anti-clotting effects of aspirin and also to assess the risk of a cardiovascular event (heart attack or stroke) in patients taking aspirin.

The AspirinWorks test is an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) to determine levels of 11-Dehydro Thromboxane B₂ in human urine, which aids in the qualitative detection of aspirin effect. The test targets a potential global market exceeding 200 million individuals.

In addition to the new EPO patent, the McMaster technology includes one patent issued in the United States and several patents pending in the United States and Canada. Corgenix also has a patent application pending in the U.S. that covers various aspects of the AspirinWorks product.

In other patent news: Abviva (Los Angeles) a biomedical company developing breast cancer diagnostic and therapeutic applications of Mammastatin, reported that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a “pivotal” patent on core technology used in its breast cancer diagnostic test, the Mammastatin Serum Assay (MSA). The patent, “Methods and Composition for Diagnosing Breast Cancer,” is the most recent of the patents in the Mammastatin IP portfolio issued to the University of Michigan (UM; Ann Arbor) for breast cancer diagnostic and breast cancer therapeutic uses.

“Abviva is the exclusive licensee of the diagnostic uses for Mammastatin in the patent portfolio owned by the University of Michigan and licensed to Abviva,” said Doug Lane, president/CEO of the company, and that it has an exclusive option to license the therapeutic uses of Mammastatin from UM to develop breast cancer drugs.

MSA was developed from the Mammastatin technology discovered by scientists at the UM Cancer Center and originally published in the journal Science. This patent signifies the increased importance of the MSA for early breast cancer detection, Abviva said.