Abcodia

Abcodia
Private
Industry Biotechnology
Founded September 2010
Key people
 CEO
Dr Julie Barnes,
COO
Chris Hodkinson,
Director of Science
Dr Wendy Alderton
Director of Business Development
Dr Mike Fisher
Chair
Dr Andy Richards
Non-Exec Director and Principal Investigator for UKCTOCS.
Prof Ian Jacobs
Non-Exec Directors
Andrew Elder and Dr Claire Hooper
Website www.abcodia.com

Abcodia is a specialist company that focuses on biomarkers for cancer screening. Its aim is to discover and validate biomarkers that can be used for the early detection of cancer. Early detection provides more treatment options and has been shown to improve survival rates. Working in collaboration with academics, technology partners and commercial diagnostic partners, Abcodia aims to dramatically improve the way cancer is detected and managed.

History

Abcodia is a spin-out from University College London and was founded in 2010. UCL granted Abcodia the exclusive commercialisation rights to a serum collection created by clinical scientists at the Institute for Women's Health at UCL. The serum biobank was formed as part of the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening UKCTOCS,[1][2][3] which was led by Professor Ian Jacobs and Professor Usha Menon. From 2001 to 2005, more than 202,000 women were randomly recruited onto the trial, all of whom provided a sample of blood on entry. Around 50,000 of these volunteers continued to provide samples annually until the end of 2011. All samples are stored in liquid nitrogen.

The biobank now contains more than 500,000 samples, 350,000 of which are longitudinal, i.e. they were taken from the same person over several years. The UCL team also created a valuable database of phenotypic, demographic and disease incidence for each volunteer. It shows that many volunteers who were originally healthy when they entered the trial have gone on to develop cancer or other debilitating disease.

On 6 June 2013 Abcodia announced a major collaboration with Cancer Research UK and its commercial arm, Cancer Research Technology, to develop new blood tests to detect a range of cancers when they are still at a very early stage. The strategic alliance will focus on biomarkers to detect cancers before patients develop symptoms, concentrating on cancers which currently have limited screening tests available, such as non-small cell lung cancer. Abcodia and CRT will jointly commercialise any biomarkers discovered during the collaboration.

Disease focus

Abcodia's primary focus is the discovery and validation of biomarkers that will lead to the development of new biomarkers which will be clinically available for the early detection and screening of cancer around the world. In 2011 it made available serum from the biobank for pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer for collaborative research, closely followed in 2012 by breast cancer and lung cancer.

Screening and detection of cancer

Without better biomarkers that can accurately detect cancer at an early stage and can be used in national cancer screening programmes, cancer mortality will continue to rise. As the age of the population increases, incidence will also increase and early detection will become ever more important. The world cancer factsheet[4] shows that by 2030 there will be 22 million people around the world diagnosed every year with cancer, an increase of 73% compared with 2008.

For some types of cancers, screening programmes are already in place (e.g. for colorectal, breast and cervical cancer). However, in some cases, current tests fall short of what is considered ideal by clinicians and in many other cancers, screening cannot be reliably performed.

On 18 September 2013 Abcodia announced that it had entered into an agreement for an exclusive commercial license for the Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm (ROCA) developed at Massachusetts General Hospital and Queen Mary, University of London, a test being validated for screening of ovarian cancer. It was invented by Professor Ian Jacobs, Dean & Head School of Medicine, Faculty of Medical & Human Sciences, University of Manchester, and formerly of Queen Mary, University of London, and Dr Steven Skates, of the Biostatistics Center, MGH, who together studied longitudinal patterns of CA125 in multiple cohorts of post-menopausal women to develop a statistical algorithm efficiently combining information in age and serial CA125 levels.

Awards

December 2012, Abcodia won four prizes at the UK Startup Awards 2012 annual awards: Angel or VC-backed Business of the Year, Innovative Business of the Year, and Business Woman of the Year for its CEO Dr Julie Barnes. It also won the overall NatWest Startups Business of the Year for its work in cancer screening.[5]

January 2013, Chairman Dr Andy Richards was presented with the BioIndustry Association Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition for his work in the UK bioscience sector.

November 2013, Abcodia’s CEO Dr Julie Barnes wins the 2013 WISE Award for Enterprise & Innovation.

References

  1. ↑ Burnell, M.; Gentry-Maharaj, A.; Ryan, A.; Apostolidou, S.; Habib, M.; Kalsi, J.; Skates, S.; Parmar, M.; Seif, M. W.; Amso, N. N.; Godfrey, K.; Oram, D.; Herod, J.; Williamson, K.; Jenkins, H.; Mould, T.; Woolas, R.; Murdoch, J.; Dobbs, S.; Leeson, S.; Cruickshank, D.; Campbell, S.; Fallowfield, L.; Jacobs, I.; Menon, U. (2011). "Impact on mortality and cancer incidence rates of using random invitation from population registers for recruitment to trials". Trials 12: 61. doi:10.1186/1745-6215-12-61. PMC 3058013. PMID 21362184.
  2. ↑ Fallowfield, L; Fleissig, A; Barrett, J; Menon, U; Jacobs, I; Kilkerr, J; Farewell, V; Ukctocs, Trialists (2010). "Awareness of ovarian cancer risk factors, beliefs and attitudes towards screening: Baseline survey of 21 715 women participating in the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening". British Journal of Cancer 103 (4): 454–61. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6605809. PMC 2939792. PMID 20648018.
  3. ↑ Jacobs, I.; Gentry-Maharaj, A.; Burnell, M.; Manchanda, R.; Singh, N.; Sharma, A.; Ryan, A.; Seif, M. W.; Amso, N. N.; Turner, G.; Brunell, C.; Fletcher, G.; Rangar, R.; Ford, K.; Godfrey, K.; Lopes, A.; Oram, D.; Herod, J.; Williamson, K.; Scott, I.; Jenkins, H.; Mould, T.; Woolas, R.; Murdoch, J.; Dobbs, S.; Leeson, S.; Cruickshank, D.; Skates, S. J.; Fallowfield, L.; Parmar, M. (2011). "Sensitivity of transvaginal ultrasound screening for endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women: A case-control study within the UKCTOCS cohort". The Lancet Oncology 12 (1): 38–48. doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(10)70268-0. PMID 21147030.
  4. ↑ The International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organisation, Global Cancer Control and Cancer Research UK. "World Cancer Factsheet" (PDF). Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  5. ↑ "NatWest Startups Business of the Year 2012: Abcodia". Startups.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-05-06.

External links

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