An Accurate Diagnostic & Monitoring Solution

Our diagnostic can achieve the specificity and sensitivity required for the detection of pancreatic cancer at an earlier stage, and allowing for more options for successful treatment. As a monitoring tool, our assay can track the progress or the regression of the disease and be a valuable aid to the clinician for assessing the appropriate form of treatment for each patient.

Detection tools to diagnose pancreatic cancer at early stages is an urgent unmet medical need.

>90%

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) accounts for greater than 90% of all pancreatic cancer cases and is notoriously difficult to detect at early stages

A lack of early diagnostics leads to scarce effective treatment options and a substantially greater risk of death

>50%

More than half of patients are suffering from advanced disease at the time of diagnosis

Xerient offers improved detection capabilities for pancreatic cancer to tests in use today

There is only one blood marker available today for diagnostic purposes for pancreatic cancer, known as CA19-9. While the presence of CA19-9 can be an indicator of pancreatic cancer, it can also be found under many other conditions, some of them benign, and is not present in up to 20% of pancreatic cancer patients. It is therefore only tested for in clinics today to monitor the progression of pancreatic cancer only after its diagnosis, which often occurs only at a very late, and hard to treat stage. CA19-9 is therefore not used to test for the presence of the disease at earlier stages.

Early Detection

Xerient’s proprietary antibodies are being trialed for use to check for early signs of pancreatic cancer

Populations at risk can include relatives of former pancreatic cancer patients and those individuals who have been found to have pancreatic cysts, which are often benign, but sometimes can be the first indication of pancreatic cancer.

We use a combination of our proprietary monoclonal antibodies, XR10 and XR15, to recognize unique targets on cancer cells. Tumor cells often express surface proteins or other molecules (called antigens) that are unique to cancer cells and not found in normal tissues. Monoclonal antibodies are immune system proteins designed to recognize and interact with foreign antigens such as those found on cancer cells in order to promote their clearance from the body. Each monoclonal antibody recognizes a unique pattern on the antigen that allows it to bind to the specific antigen target, making them particularly useful for cancer therapeutics and diagnostics.

Detecting CEACAM 5 and CEACAM 6

Carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule (CEACAM) is a member of the CEA family of cell adhesion proteins. The CEACAM proteins are predominantly expressed during fetal development and reappear during tumor development in adults. Both CEACAM5 and CEACAM6 are over-expressed in nearly 70% of epithelial cancers, with a very high expression in Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). In cancer this over-expression is associated with invasive properties such as promotion of tumor invasion and metastasis. Among different malignancies high expression of CEACAM6 is associated with worse overall survival. Due to these factors, CEACAM5 and CEACAM6 make ideal targets for creating a PDAC diagnostic tool.

A real game changer

An accurate diagnostic tool can be transformative for the treatment of pancreatic cancer and diagnosing the disease in greater numbers at earlier stages. Early detection of pancreatic cancer can allow for more effective treatments and a greatly improved 5-year survival rate, which is known to reach 39% when pancreatic cancer is detected at its earliest stages, versus just 3% when the disease is only discovered at a very late stage, such as what is happening today.