Xenomics Announces License with Warnex of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Assay
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Xenomics, Inc. has announced that it has granted Warnex Medical Laboratories, a division of Warnex Inc., nonexclusive rights in Canada to offer NPM1 testing as a laboratory service for the diagnosis, stratification and monitoring of patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).
AML is a clinically heterogeneous disease with about 200,000 new cases per year worldwide. The disease subgrouping by karyotypic abnormalities indicates patient prognosis. However, in almost half of AML cases the karyotype appears normal and provides no guide for the physician.
A recent discovery by Drs. Falini and Mecucci showed that many AML patients have mutations in the NPM1 gene, a favorable marker for clinical outcome. Xenomics holds exclusive rights to the discovery and has nonexclusively sublicensed its diagnostic applications to Warnex to offer clinical testing. The results of such a test will help physicians select patients with a good prognosis of benefiting from intensive chemotherapy, while sparing others with a low probability of benefit from the toxic treatment.
The NPM1 mutation may also be used to monitor AML patients for residual disease during chemotherapy. Stratification of AML patients is also necessary for anti-AML drug clinical trials.
