PredictImmune Granted Patent in Canada for Methods to Predict Autoimmune Disease Progression
PredictImmune has expanded its intellectual propriety portfolio with a new patent approved in Canada covering the company’s methods for predicting the risk of progression among patients with autoimmune diseases, like ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
This follows the 2018 approval of previous patent applications in the U.K. and Europe, and further supports the company’s goal of enabling personalized medicine for a range of immune-mediated diseases, a PredictImmune press release stated.
Autoimmune diseases like AAV and IBD have very variable clinical courses, and there is currently no way of knowing if a patient will have a severe form of the condition, with multiple relapses, or a more stable clinical outcome.
As a result, all patients receive the same standard-of-care approach, meaning that several patients will be either under- or over-treated. So, identifying patients with more aggressive disease, allowing for the delivery of more suitable treatments, is a major concern among clinicians.
PredictImmune has licensed three patent families from Cambridge Enterprise, which will allow the development of prognostic tests for these immune-mediated diseases. The tests aim to help in disease management and improve patient outcomes.
The new technology is further protected by a proprietary algorithm and a large bank of clinical data required for the development of the test.
PredictSURE IBD is PredictImmune’s first product. It was developed in the department of medicine at the University of Cambridge for 10 years to specifically assess IBD risk of progression.
Based on a simple blood test, the approach measures levels of several immune-related biomarkers and uses this information to classify patients according to the most likely course of the disease. This information can be used to guide future steps of treatment.
Validated in multiple, independent patient groups, the prognostic test provides valuable information to clinicians to select the most appropriate treatment strategy for each patient.
PredictSURE IBD will be launched in the U.K. soon and is expected to be available throughout the European Union later this year.
PredictImmune is planning to develop similar predictive tests for other diseases, in which immune-mediated mechanisms also are involved, such as ANCA-associated vasculitis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
