Cytox Awarded Innovate UK Funding For Stratification Of Neurodegenerative Diseases

Funding will aid clinical evaluation of genetic panel in MCI risk stratification

OXFORD, UK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cytox Ltd, an innovative developer of assays for risk assessment and prediction of dementia, is pleased to announce that, as part of a consortium, the company has been awarded funding by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, through the Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) competition ND1: ‘Diagnosis, management and stratification’. The CR&D project award is almost £1.3m ($1.9m) out of a total project value of £1.8m ($2.6m), over three years.

“We are delighted to be awarded funding by Innovate UK for this project”

The funding has been awarded to a UK consortium, comprising Cytox, as consortium lead, Dr Zsuzsanna Nagy (University of Birmingham), Professor John Hardy (University College London); Dr Valentina Escott-Price (University of Cardiff) will work as an expert consultant in statistical genetics to the project team. The project will evaluate and validate the clinical utility of a customized genetic variation (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism [SNP]) panel associated with the mTOR signalling and other pathways in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Dysregulation of the complex mTOR pathway has been identified as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD); differentially expressed mTOR pathway genes may regulate key functions linked to AD risk.

“We are delighted to be awarded funding by Innovate UK for this project,” commented Dr. Richard Pither, CEO of Cytox, “There is heavy competition for such awards, so this funding represents external support for our research by an expert review team and confirms the potential of our proprietary data suggesting that an assessment of disease risk may be possible. The validation of this customised genetic variation panel for future at risk individuals with MCI is a key goal for Cytox, with our eventual aim to provide prognostic tests to stratify early MCI patients.”

MCI may be a prodromal state for AD and over half of these patients are at high risk of progression to AD. The lack of validated biomarkers hampers clinical management of AD and the production of new therapies. This project will study prospectively, a large cohort of MCI patients to validate the proprietary genetic variation panel for dementia risk. Such a prognostic test is essential to enable meaningful clinical trials of emergent AD therapies.

Innovate UK:

Innovate UK is the new name for the Technology Strategy Board. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk

CR&D programme

https://www.gov.uk/innovation-get-details-about-innovate-uk-funding-competitions#collaborative-research-and-development