February 3, 2004
EXAGEN DIAGNOSTICS ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE LICENSING AGREEMENT WITH UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
Exagen Diagnostics, Inc., an emerging leader in the discovery and development of practical prognostic genomic markers for serious diseases, has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with the University of New Mexico's Science and Technology Corporation (STC). STC licenses innovative technology developed at UNM, including therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and drug discovery tools. The agreement gives Exagen exclusive rights to several patents for a novel FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) process developed at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.
Exagen is in the process of developing a breast cancer prognostic that will help physicians determine which newly diagnosed patients should consider aggressive treatment. Also Exagen is developing hepatitis C prognostics that will identify patients who are most likely to develop liver disease and patients who are most likely to respond to treatment with interferon and ribarivan. The company discovers genomic markers and turns them into practical FISH tests. The test reagents will be distributed through large diagnostic laboratories with broad reach.
"We believe that this FISH technology is an excellent fit for the products that Exagen is developing and we are very pleased to be able to license this technology in New Mexico," says Lisa Kuuttila, president and CEO of STC. "UNM alumna and Exagen CEO Waneta Tuttle is the kind of serial entrepreneur we need in New Mexico and we believe she has put together an outstanding company with Exagen Diagnostics."
F
or many years, FISH has been a widely used, powerful and versatile tool for the detection and localization of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) within cell or tissue preparations. UNM researchers have discovered a faster, less expensive way to take DNA apart, label DNA segments of interest, and put it back together. Donald M. Thompson, science research administrator in the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at the UNM Health Sciences Center, and Gloria Sarto, M.D., formerly a member of the faculty in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, developed the technology as a diagnostic tool to improve detection of specific DNA information in fetal cells.
"When combined with Exagen's own FISH-related inventions, the licensed technology provides the assay format for our prognostic genomic markers," says Waneta Tuttle, Ph.D., president and CEO of Exagen Diagnostics. "It's an exciting and very powerful diagnostics tool that allows us to conduct patient testing using familiar, multiplexed fluorescent FISH assays instead of the more cumbersome and expensive alternative methods."
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
About Exagen Diagnostics, Inc.
Exagen's mission is to enable better treatment choices for cancer and chronic infectious diseases through discovery and commercialization of accurate and practical prognostic tests. Exagen is developing products for disease prognosis and therapy management that are expected to significantly improve clinical outcomes.
About Science and Technology Corporation University of New Mexico
The Science and Technology Corporation is a nonprofit corporation owned exclusively by UNM to protect and transfer faculty inventions to the commercial marketplace.
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