Among the many advantages to finding biomarkers that indicate certain diseases or conditions is that they can make obsolete very invasive or uncomfortable old-school tests. Peter Cohan, who writes a Forbes blog called The Startup Economy, has the perfect example.
"Getting tested for bladder cancer can involve the use of a catheter where the sun don't shine," Cohan writes. "The disease and its treatment are bad enough. And it sure would be great if there was a less painful way to test for it. That's where Predictive Biosciences enters the picture."
No uncomfortable catheters here. Just a urine test from which the company's technology can grab combinations of protein and DNA biomarkers to enhance physicians' ability to diagnose bladder and prostate cancer.
Predictive Biosciences CEO Peter Klemm tells Cohan that the biomarker detection technology saves bladder cancer patients a great deal of money and pain after diagnosis, since they need to be monitored often by a process that is even painful to write: a cystoscope is threaded through the urethra and into the bladder...every three months for two years and then every six months for the next two years. It is likely at these times that a patient might think: "There must be a better way."
Cohan goes into market segments and business plans in his column, but the bottom line is that the company is on track for growth.
- read the article on Peter Cohan's The Startup Economy blog