Health Check: Proteomics reports 'excellent' results for blood-based esophageal cancer test

Health Check is renowned biotech journo Tim Boreham’s daily wrap covering morning movers and shakers of note in the ASX Healthcare sector, Monday through Thursday.

Proteomics blood-based test showed 94% accuracy in both detecting and ruling out esophageal adenocarcinoma (AEC)
The test showed showed 94% accuracy in detecting esophageal adenocarcinoma (AEC) in a 165-sample clinical validation study
Takeovers Panel declines to act on Tissue Repair application

Diagnostics house Proteomics International Laboratories (ASX:PIQ) has reported “excellent” results from a clinical trial for its world-first esophageal cancer test that promises to do away with the current detection tool of invasive endoscopies.

The company said its blood test Promarker Eso showed 94% accuracy in detecting esophageal adenocarcinoma (AEC) in a 165-sample clinical validation study.

The trial involved the test detected tell-tale glycoprotein biomarkers in the blood from the 165 samples provided by the Vicotria Cancer Biobank, 66 confirmed AEC and 99 of them healthy controls.

The 94% accuracy rate applied to both detecting patients with the disease (sensitivity) and without the ailment (specificity).

In comparison, the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) diagnostic blood test test for prostate cancer – an indication Proteomics is not pursuing – works on a sensitivity of 32% and specificity of 87%.

The results were presented at the ongoing International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus World Congress in Edinburgh – so having been aired before learned peers the results are deemed to be official.

Esophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related death, responsible for one in 20 cancer mortalities. Currently 90% of esophageal adenocarcinoma cases go undetected and the five-year survival rate is a mere 20%.

EAC is the commonest form of esophageal cancer in North America, Australia and Europe, affecting 1-2% of the population (about 600,000 people globally).

In total, Proteomics draws on nearly 300 samples that have been analysed across three independent patient groups.

“We see enormous market potential for a diagnostic test to improve screening and surveillance in at-risk populations,” Proteomics managing director Dr Richard Lipscombe says.

“If we can detect esophageal cancer earlier with Promarker Eso then we can help reduce the enormous cost burden of this disease on healthcare systems and save many lives.”

Apart from being invasive and painful, endoscopies cost around US$2,750 in the US, at a total annual cost of US$2.9 billion.

In the US 1.5 million endoscopies with biopsy are performed annually in individuals with chronic acid reflux symptoms, but despite this up to 90% of EAC cases continue to go undetected.

Proteomics expects to launch its test in Australia in the March half of next year, pending manufacturing accreditation.

In the US, the company plans to a launch under the laboratory-developed test path which precludes the need for full FDA approval.

Proteomics already has a European-approved test for diabetic kidney disease and is developing one for the hard-to-detect endometriosis.

Proteomics shares gained 5% to 69 cents.

Tissue Repair to stay ASX-listed after outbreak of board harmony

The upshot of a board spat at Tissue Repair Tissue Repair (ASX:TRP) seems to be that the company will remain listed on the ASX, contrary to earlier suggestions.

Late on Friday the Takeovers Panel said it would decline to conduct proceedings in relation to an application from Tissue’s non-executive directors alleging “undisclosed association between certain shareholders”.

The directors had received notices under the relevant Corporations Law sections 249D and 203D dated 15 August 2024, seeking a general meeting to remove two directors and appoint a new director.

The panel said the notices “appeared to be signed by shareholders,including Spark Capital and [co-founder and executive director Tony] Charara, who together hold more than 50% of TRP’s voting shares.”

“The notices were provided to Tissue Repair’s non-executive directors by a legal adviser who asserted that the notices would be served on Tissue Repair if [the company] failed to provide a satisfactory proposal to give effect to the board changes being sought by the relevant shareholders,” the panel said.

Tissue Repair submitted (among other things) that the shareholders who had signed the requisition notices “have a relevant agreement to seek to restructure Tissue Repair’s board of directors and have failed to disclose any combined voting power, relevant interests or association”.

But now Charara and Spark Capital Pty Ltd have undertaken not to give the notices to the company and “to inform each of the other shareholders who signed the notices that they are free to exercise their voting rights in their absolute discretion on any resolution”.

The clincher is that Charara “is not considering, proposing or currently giving any consideration to any proposal to delist Tissue Repair and that he has no intention to do so in future”.

Mr Charara said he had not discussed any delisting proposal with the other requisitioning shareholders.

The episode hasn’t done Tissue Repair’s prospects any harm, given the shares have more than doubled since the local Therapeutics Goods Administration approved its yeast-derived wound healing gel, TR Pro+ in July.

Mind you, the company is playing catch-up valuation wise, given the shares listed in November 2021 at $1.15 apiece.

Tissue shares this morning blew 11% to trade at 41 cents.