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() shares shot up around 35 per cent after the unexpected news that a newly acquired screening product for skin cancer had been granted a European patent.
The test is for a biomarker, called NAV3, which is part of an already ?well-developed? test kit.
Landing the patent means that can start marketing the product to the oncology research industry and fellow drug developers, while planning a larger product launch into the wider market.
The news sparked an exciting period of trading on the market with around 140 million shares, or 14 per cent of the company, changing hands by lunchtime.
said the news strongly vindicates the decision to acquire Finland based Pharmatest, which it secured last month in a deal worth ?137,000.
As part of the deal, ?s newly established ValiFinn acquired intellectual property relating to a number of biomarker discoveries, all of which were in the process of being patented.
Today?s patent news about one of these discoveries is unexpected bonus, director George Morris told Proactive Investors.
He explained that the idea behind the Pharmatest acquisition was too take control of the biomarker discovery business for its own purposes, rather than Pharmatest?s existing IP.
?We?ve been doing our own biomarker research, up there in Finland, in respect of our lead cancer drug compounds for use in clinical trials in therapeutic use,? he said.
?We needed somewhere to do this research. We?d already used them as a service provider, we liked what we saw and we bought the company.?
Morris added: ?We knew it (the patent for NAV3) was coming through at some point, but the fact that it came through as it did, just two weeks after we concluded the acquisition, was a pleasant surprise.
The time it takes for patents to be cleared and approved varies dramatically. They (the other acquired patents) are going through this process and they will dribble out over the next period of time.
Morris says that while NAV3 is the most advanced, it is not necessarily the most interesting of the biomarker that have been discovered and some of the other discoveries are perhaps more interesting scientifically.?
?But NAV3 is certainly a commercially important biomarker (for ),? he added.
?The test kit is already up and running. ?We now need to clinically validate it in larger numbers of people.
?We can use (sell) it for research purposes, and in certain companion diagnostics that are currently in development. So there is a possibility of getting the product into real markets right away, but to get the longer term and larger markets it will require some clinical validation.
?We are talking with a number of clinical groups about that at the moment.??
Morris says that for research purposes and developmental purposes the market is restricted to a relatively limited number of buyers - although they may buy a lot of kits.?
These customers are likely to be larger cancer drug developers and clinical research organisations, he added.
Ultimately, though will to sell these products into the larger clinical market to professional oncologists.
The testing kit will not be sold over the counter, unlike some of the group?s other diagnostic products like the Chlamydia testing kit which was launched last year.?
The NAV3 based test involves the interpretation of more complicated biomarker data, the results must therefore be read by professional oncologists, Morris explained.
It is important to point out that, according to Morris, the product will be less about diagnosing cancer, but more about managing ongoing therapy and drug personalisation.
?(The product) will be useful for therapeutics monitoring, outcome monitoring and prognosis.?
He says this kind of product is relevant to very significant market.?
?Its (application) is just part of a more generalised move towards personalised cancer therapeutics and diagnosis.
Morris uses the example of HIV and AIDS to demonstrate his point. He points out that this is a disease that people quickly died from twenty or so years ago, but now people are able to live with the disease.
This, he explains, is done by very carefully monitoring the disease and adjusting drug treatments accordingly. ??Cancer treatment, or amelioration, is going the same way. Living with cancer is becoming much more of a reality,? Morris said.
?People no longer die of breast cancer every time, now largely they live. And it is the same with an awful lot of other cancers. Prostate cancer and skin cancers, in particular, are successfully looked after a great deal more than they ever were before.
?And that?s the space we are fitting into.?
Morris says it is about being able to determine which therapeutic will work for a person, and which ones most definitely won?t.?
?NAV3 plays a significant role in determining these details. What?s more it a very simple test.?
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