Prostate Cancer Company Minomic Wins Prestigious Eureka Science Prize

SYDNEY, Sept. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Australian prostate cancer technology company Minomic International Ltd has jointly won a prestigious Australian science prize recognising 'outstanding' science that uses its patented antibody.

The company, on track to globally launch a novel prostate cancer diagnostic test known as MiCheck® next year, was part of a high level consortium taking out the peer-reviewed Australian Museum Eureka Science Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research.

This prize is awarded for ground breaking research that has only been made possible by combining two or more unrelated disciplines.

Minomic and its scientific partners, Professor Jin Dayong from the University of Technology Sydney/Macquarie University and Professor Tanya Monro from the University of South Australia, demonstrated that combining Minomic's proprietary MIL-38 antibody with "Super Dots" nanoparticle technology will enable ultra low levels of cancer cells to be identified in blood or urine samples, paving the way for early stage cancer detection.

Minomic Chief Executive Officer Dr Brad Walsh said: "This was a fantastic scientific achievement, and we are delighted that we have been able to contribute to this potentially ground breaking research finding."

"This Eureka Prize accolade is internationally regarded and formally recognises the intrinsic science embedded in our technology," he said.

"Our patented antibody is the centrepiece of our novel MiCheck® prostate cancer diagnostic test, but this scientific collaboration demonstrates its longer term value across a range of technologies."

"This award augurs well for our company and its commercial prospects, because it provides further evidence that our platform is scientifically sound having been peer reviewed at the highest level."

Dr Walsh added: "Super Dots are the brightest nanoscale tags for single molecule detection. By combining Super Dots with our prostate cancer technology in a trans-disciplinary approach we are able to break through some of the technical bottlenecks in cancer detection allowing us to achieve much higher levels of sensitivity."

The Eureka Science prizes are awarded annually to recognise outstanding endeavour in scientific research and innovation, science leadership, science communication and journalism and school science.

Minomic is a Sydney based immuno-oncology company committed to developing new therapeutics and diagnostics for prostate cancer.

The Eureka Prizes are regarded as Australia's most comprehensive national science awards and were established in 1990 to reward outstanding achievements in science and science communication.

About Minomic

Minomic International Ltd is an Australian immuno-oncology company specialising in therapeutics and diagnostics for prostate cancer. Minomic has developed the in vitro diagnostic test called MiCheck® for the early detection of prostate cancer.  Minomic is preparing to globally launch its first product, a novel prostate cancer blood test known as MiCheck®, which has been shown to be more than twice as specific as the existing gold standard Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) screening technology. The simple MiCheck® technology uses Glypican-1, a newly identified biomarker. Minomic scientists have also identified two other biomarkers never previously used in prostate cancer diagnosis to further improve the test.

Following a successful 300 patient clinical study demonstrating good specificity of 85% for discriminating prostate cancer patients from those with benign prostatic hyperplasia, the test is about to enter final stage validation trials. This means that MiCheck® delivers only 1.5 false positives from every ten samples, compared to 6 false positive results in every 10 samples using the standard PSA test.

Minomic is interested in partnerships or collaborations with larger pharmaceutical/diagnostic global partners able to produce, register and distribute the MiCheck® test and collaborate through registration and commercialisation of future diagnostic imaging and therapeutic applications of the MIL-38 antibody for prostate cancer.

SOURCE Minomic International Limited