A message from Edmonton Global:
Twenty-two percent of all new cancer cases in Canadian men are prostate cancer, and when it comes to prostate cancer, early detection saves lives. Since its founding in 2017, Edmonton region-based health tech company Nanostics has been working to make its early prostate cancer detection test available across Canada, the United States, and the Middle East.
"My goal from the very beginning of my career was to try to make an impact on human disease, specifically in cancer," John Lewis, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nanostics, said.
That vision sharpened as John and his team began tackling one of medicine's biggest diagnostic gaps: prostate cancer. "Prostate cancer that stays in the prostate is pretty much 100% curable," he explained. "But if it spreads, it's a deadly disease."
The standard screening tool is the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. The PSA test, while widely used, is not ideal, John explained. "It really is one of the worst tests, because 75% of the time you get a high PSA, it's not cancer … The only way to tell if you have cancer is through a biopsy, which is incredibly invasive and can come with its own side effects."
John and his team started looking for a way to, as non-invasively as possible, "do a better job of predicting who has aggressive prostate cancer, before doing a prostate biopsy."
To do that, Nanostics began by gathering retrospective biofluid samples and clinical data from nearly 4,000 Alberta men and used this data to develop the AI-based ClarityDX Prostate test. The test was then validated using real-world blood samples and clinical data from a 3,600-patient international study in collaboration with partners in the U.S. and Europe.
"The fact that we have 4.5 million people under a single healthcare system made this project doable in Alberta," John said. "It really couldn't have been done anywhere else."
Learn more about how the test has become available in more and more places, and what's in store for both ClarityDX and Nanostics.
The Trade Heroes series from Edmonton Global highlights companies in the Edmonton region that have "exportitude" — the mindset and commitment to think globally when it comes to their business.