Spinout News / UCLB News

Abcodia collaborates with Volition Rx

17 February 2012

Abcodia Logo

UCL spinout company, Abcodia collaborates with Volition Rx to advance the discovery of blood based biomarkers for cancer

Abcodia, a biomarker validation company and a UCL spin out company, with investment from UCLB, has today announced a collaboration with life sciences company Volition Rx which will advance the development of biomarkers for the early detection of cancer.

The partnership will discover and develop nucleosome-based diagnostic tests for lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancer by using the latest ground breaking technology.

Abcodia will work closely with Volition on the design of the programme and the identification of cohort samples from its large prospective serum biobank and, Volition Rx will use its expertise in developing blood-based diagnostic tests to produce the very latest and innovative nucleosome-based diagnostic tests for cancer.

Julie Barnes, Chief Executive for Abcodia, said: “We are delighted to be able to partner with a company as dynamic as Volition on this groundbreaking technology and are looking forward to advancing their early stage cancer biomarkers towards diagnostic products that will make a vital difference to people’s lives and well being.

Cameron Reynolds, Chief Executive of VolitionRx, said: “The collaboration with Abcodia is a key partnership for us. Access to Abcodia’s samples will potentially expedite the development of our blood-based diagnostic technology, Nucleosomics. We believe that data from validation of thousands of samples, across multiple cancer areas, will help us to reach our goal of applying for European CE Mark approval this year.

About Abcodia
Abcodia is a specialist company engaged in the validation and discovery of biomarkers of cancer and other age-related diseases. The company’s prospective biobank has over 5,000,000 serum samples derived from more than 200,000 initially healthy volunteers, 50,000 of whom have provided samples annually, making this an ideal resource for identifying biomarkers for disease screening. Abcodia was spun out from UCL with investment from UCLB. Abcodia has been granted rights to commercialise IP from one of the largest biobanks in the UK which has been created by lead clinical scientists at UCL, one of the world’s leading research-led universities.

For further information, please see: www.abcodia.com

About Volition RX
Volition is a diagnostic specialist company based in the US, with offices in Singapore and Belgium. Its goal is to make its non-invasive blood tests for cancer as common and simple to use as existing diabetic and cholesterol tests on similar formats.

Based on its proprietary NucleosomicsTM technology, the company has developed tests that detect the nucleosome patterns that are specific to cancer in blood, and identify some of the major nucleosome varieties that differ between cancer types. Development activities are currently centered in Belgium and will be augmented by commercialization work in Singapore with a focus on bringing its revolutionary diagnostic products to market first in Europe, then the US and worldwide.

For further information, please see: http://www.volitionrx.com/about-us.html

About UCLB
UCLB is a leading technology transfer company that supports and commercialises research and innovations arising from UCL, one of the UK’s top research-led universities.

UCLB has a successful track record and a strong reputation for identifying and protecting promising new technologies and innovations from UCL academics. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from the laboratory to market.

UCLB supports UCL’s Grand Challenges of increasing UCL’s positive impact on and contribution to Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing.

For further information, please visit: www.uclb.com