Oxford Biodynamics PLC is a global biotechnology company leading the world in the study and commercialisation of 3D genomics. The company is listed on the AIM market and has a market cap of £60m.
This week they released some very exciting news when they announced the launch of their 94% accurate PSE test for Prostate Cancer. CEO Jon Burrows and his team have been working overtime to get this test to the market and have managed to get the lab certification and all approvals completed in a very short time. Certainly, much sooner than originally hoped for when they announced plans to have the test on the market by the end of the year.
Despite his busy schedule I was able to sit down with the CEO Jon Burrows to hear him talk about what a game changer this is for the company and for men’s health.
The PSE test for prostate cancer was developed in collaboration with Imperial College London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the University of East Anglia as part of the four-year Prostagram trial. The study results were peer reviewed in “Cancers”, an open access journal of oncology, and published in February 2023. The task set within the Prostagram trial was to improve the results of the unreliable PSA test which is why the PSE test will be used alongside the PSA test. Together, the PSA level combined with 5 epigenetic markers in the PSE test provide significantly better results and consequently offer so much value to patients and the healthcare system.
OBD’s PSE Test for prostate cancer was found to have Positive Predictive Value of 0.93, a Negative Predictive Value of 0.95 and an overall accuracy rate of 94%. These results are substantially better than the existing widely used PSA test which has a Positive Predictive Value of only 0.25 , a Negative Predictive Value of 0.86 and an overall accuracy rate of 55%. This is a huge difference and in practice this means that for those taking the PSA and getting a positive result, for 75% of them the diagnosis is incorrect. These incorrect diagnoses cause a huge amount of angst and worry for patients as well as leading to unnecessary MRI scans and costly biopsies, often with unpleasant side effects. The consequences of an unnecessary biopsy are actually quite shocking: 40% of men experience a complication; 9.1% of men have to visit…
