PExA awarded SEK 1 million from Vinnova for the next step toward lung-cancer diagnostics
PExA has been awarded SEK 1,000,000 in funding from Vinnova – Sweden’s Innovation Agency – for a project that supports the company’s strategic repositioning toward future diagnostic applications.
The funding is granted within the call “Deepened collaborations with the USA, the United Kingdom and Singapore in health and life science.”
The project, RAISE-lung, is carried out in collaboration with the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton – the UK’s largest photonics research centre and one of the world’s leading institutes in optoelectronics.
The project focuses on the small airways – the part of the lung where lung cancer and other respiratory diseases often begin, but which today’s methods rarely reach without invasive procedures. Its purpose is to connect PExA’s non-invasive sampling platform with advanced infrared biosensor technology – an important step toward future rapid and accessible biomarker detection.
During the year, PExA has taken several important steps in its strategic repositioning toward diagnostic applications. The company has filed a patent application for biomarker patterns that clearly distinguish lung-cancer samples, showcased its technology at the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC), and is now taking this collaboration as yet another step in the same direction.
The new project with the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton will evaluate how infrared biosensor technology can be used to detect biomarkers in PEx samples.
Today, broad and costly biochemical analyses are used to identify biomarker candidates – analyses that take time to perform and often require large sample sets. The results can then form the basis for more affordable targeted analyses and, as in this project, for future biosensors enabling faster and more accessible biomarker detection.
The goal is to pave the way for new types of biosensors capable of identifying biomarkers for lung diseases – such as lung cancer – in real time.
- Step by step, we are building toward the diagnostics of the future – from sampling to solution. This project brings us closer to real-time detection of biomarkers in the small airways and marks an important milestone in our long-term strategy. We are very pleased and grateful for Vinnova’s support, which enables us to deepen the collaboration with ORC – one of the world’s foremost photonics centres.
Our vision is that, in the future, lung cancer will be detected at a treatable stage – today, 80–85 % of cases are still diagnosed too late for a cure, says Tomas Gustafsson, CEO of PExA.
The long-term goal is to make early and accessible diagnostics of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases available worldwide through real-time biomarker analysis – and thereby help more patients be cured of their disease.
For further information, please contact:
Tomas Gustafsson, CEO, info@pexa.se
About PExA AB:
PExA AB PExA AB (556956-9246) has developed the PExA 2.1, a patented research instrument that helps researchers intelligently collect biological samples from the smallest airways through a simple exhalation maneuver. PExA’s technology is currently used by prominent research groups in several different countries and research with the instrument has resulted in approximately 50 scientific publications, which serve as reference material for PExA’s method. The company’s long-term goal is to market and sell diagnostic instruments for popular diseases (e.g. lung cancer and COPD) to be used globally for diagnosis or general screening at facilities where care is offered. The company intends at the time it is relevant to sell to clinics to have developed more patient-friendly, flexible and commercial products, which means that PExA addresses a significantly wider market, which today includes several million patients globally.
PExA’s B share is listed on the Spotlight Stock Market.