Earlier this week, Roche Holding Ltd. (OTCMKTS:RHHBY) made big news by winning the FDA's approval to administer a breast cancer drug before surgical removal of a breast tumor ... the first time the Food and Drug Administration has believed surgery (then followed by drugs and chemo) wasn't the best approach. Earlier in the year, a company called Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MYGN) made a big splash, helped along by celebrity Angelina Jolie, who - using a DNA test from the genetic-testing company - elected to undergo a double mastectomy because her diagnostic's scores she was at a greater risk of breast cancer. Aside from being good for MYGN and RHHBY shareholders, both Roche Holding and Myriad Genetics are doing good work for cancer patients (and pre-cancer patient) too. Yet, there's another smaller company close to entering the same breast cancer fight that made big news of its own today... MetaStat Inc. (OTCMKTS:MTST). Indeed, this off-the-radar company in many ways has more potential than Myriad or Roche do, just by the virtue and capability of its underlying science.
Quick backstory: MetaStat Inc. is the developer of a biotechnology focused on determining how invasive and aggressive a particular breast cancer patient's cancer tumor is by determining the ratio of two particular proteins found in all tumor cells. Too much of what MTST is calling the MenaINV protein and too little of the "good" Mena11a protein means a particular cancer tumor is more prone to eject a cell into the bloodstream, where that same cell can lodge itself somewhere else in the body and easily start a new tumor. MetaStat's MenaCalc platform is the tool that makes the comparison, and based on the technology, MetaStat Inc. aims to have MetaSite Breast (specifically to determine the risk of metastasis from breast cancer) on the market by 2015.
If the premise seems familiar, it may be because protein-specific breast cancer treatments are quickly becoming the new norm. For instance, Roche Holding's newest cancer drug Perjeta - the one the FDA gave the green light to as a pre-surgery treatment this week - specifically targets cancers that test positive for the HER2 protein.
So where do MetaStat's MenaCalc and MetaSite Breast tools fit into the oncology and prevention framework?
Myriad Genetics' ability to spot a likelihood of breast cancer based on a particular individual's DNA is impressive to be sure. The shortfall is, only an estimated 5% to 10% of cancers are hereditary. The other 90% to 95% don't stem from a genetic predisposition. And, though MetaSite Breast doesn't gauge an individual's risk of developing breast cancer in the first place, breast cancer itself isn't the big risk of breast cancer. An estimated 90% of breast-cancer related deaths are actually the result of metastasization of that cancer to other parts of the body. By understanding the risks of metastasization, a doctor and a breast cancer patient can take measures to reduce the risk of that cancer spreading.
But it's only a diagnostic, and not actually a treatment like Roche Holding's combination of Herceptin and Perjeta? That's true. However, that may not always be the case.
Though further down the road, MTST is also using the same MenaINV/Mena11a to develop a drug that will actually reduce the risk of metastasized breast cancer by destroying the protein that makes a tumor cell so invasive in the first place. In that light, the MetaStat solution could be a superior choice to Perjeta. The HER2 protein that Perjeta is targeting is only found to be present in about 20% of breast cancer patients. The protein MetaStat is targeting is found in about 60% of breast cancer cases. Fast forward to today's news.
Per this morning's press release, MetaStat's MetaSite Breast diagnostic test "works." An early trial of 60 patients suggested it would, but the company expanded the test to 500 patients, and confirmed similar results: there is a relationship between the MetaSite score and the risk of distant metastasis. Again, this isn't a treatment being tested - just a determination of metastasis risk. But, it's the groundwork for the treatment platform so-called MenaBloc. In the meantime, the accuracy of the test will certainly be of interest to hundreds of thousands of breast cancer survivors who want to know what risks they're facing, and develop a plan of action to abate them.
For more on MetaStat, you can visit the company's website here, or take a look at the SCN research page here.
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