BOULDER, Colo., Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Source MDx announced today that it has been issued US patent no. 6,964,850, which grants the company exclusive use of multi-gene indexes for RNA and protein-based molecular biomarkers to track an individual’s current health, disease status and individual response to drug therapy. This foundational molecular medicine patent extends Source MDx’s two earlier patents for precision-based gene expression assay methods and the discovery of healthy normal gene expression to include methods that provide numerical indexes of two or more genes to describe the biological state of an individual. Specifically, this patent establishes claims for multi-gene indexes to evaluate the inflammatory state of an individual. Furthermore, these indices can be used to set the dose and schedule for a therapeutic regimen and to predict whether an individual will be a responder. In addition, the patent claims the use of latent class statistical methods for the analysis of complex, multi-gene expression data in conjunction with clinical observations.
“This patent establishes a powerful molecular diagnostic toolset including latent class analysis from which to identify a disease state and evaluate improvements in a patient’s condition, which is critical to the adoption of molecular diagnostics for routine use in drug development and medicine,” said David Trollinger, Vice President, Molecular Technologies of Source MDx. “Latent class analysis builds models based on a gene’s significance and discriminating power. The latent class assignment determines group membership (i.e. normal vs. disease, drug responder vs. non-responder) as a function of the gene expression.”
This patent also establishes claims for Gene Expression Biomarker Panels, designed and validated by Source MDx, as the basis for multi-gene biological indexes. The biomarker panels and multi-gene indexes cover a wide range of diseases and disorders associated with inflammatory and immune events, including autoimmune disorders, cancer, immunosuppression, and cardiovascular, eye, infectious, gastrointestinal, metabolic/endocrine and pulmonary diseases.
“This patent enables us to provide our clients with complex gene expression data in a statistically powerful format capable of assessing a vast range of conditions in their clinical trials,” said Karl Wassmann, Chief Executive Officer and President of Source MDx. “In the future, we believe that the use of our patented multi-gene molecular indexes by physicians will provide new diagnostic methods to support a ‘treat-to-normal’ approach as a standard in molecular medicine” he added.
Source MDx uses its patented molecular diagnostic system to monitor an individual’s health, disease status and response to therapy at the molecular level, using RNA from whole blood or tissue samples. Source MDx markets over 20 patented disease and pathway-specific biomarker panels that are used in both preclinical and clinical drug development, and is developing companion patient care diagnostics focused on inflammation and immune response genes. The company has completed over 100 preclinical and clinical projects for more than 30 leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic companies, with over one million gene expression measurements analyzed.
Contact: Michelle Linn, 508-419-1555, linnmich@sourcemdx.com.
Source MDx
CONTACT: Michelle Linn of Source MDx, +1-508-419-1555,linnmich@sourcemdx.com
Web site: http://www.sourcemdx.com/
