Aqsens Health starting pre-clinical trials for urinary tract cancer detection in China
Aqsens Health and its Chinese partner OG Pharmaceuticals have received funding for a joint prostate and bladder cancer pre-clinical and clinical research project in Jiangsu Province in China.
Turku, Finland. Aqsens Health is happy to announce a new preclinical and clinical research project with OG pharmaceuticals, based in Nanjing, China. The research partnership aims to perform prostate and bladder cancer pre-clinical trials in Jiangsu Province in 2024. The study will advance Aqsens Health’s E-TRF method and biosensor development with a goal to improve the early detection of prostate and bladder cancers from urine.
This research collaboration in Nanjing builds upon Aqsens' extensive research on prostate and bladder cancer detection in Finland and it also incorporates leading practices derived from Aqsens’ research project on metastatic cancer in partnership with Turku University Hospital. The project is planned to last until the end of 2024.
The first phase of the collaboration will focus on pre-clinical trials for prostate cancer with the aim to apply for permission to perform clinical trials. The prostate cancer trial will be followed by a bladder cancer study. The trials will be conducted in collaboration with Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and expert oncologists, and will enable Aqsens to obtain the permission for a large-scale clinical trial and the certification of Aqsens Health’s AQ Prostate and AQ Bladder in the Chinese market.
A research team from OG Pharmaceuticals will be trained to use E-TRF and biosensor with the AQ Lab development environment, which was purposely built to be used in developing Aqsens Health’s biosensors, running E-TRF and biosensor analyses, and training research personnel. The training will be conducted in two steps, first online and then physically at Aqsens Health’s laboratories in Turku. After certification the researchers will be able to conduct complex research work in China under the supervision of Aqsens Health’s scientific team.
“We are excited to collaborate with Aqsens Health to build innovative means to screen urinary tract cancers and potentially other diseases as well using their E-TRF and biosensor technology,” says OG Pharmaceuticals CEO, Dr. Wanzhou Zhao.
“With this collaboration we can be a part of something that can have an impact on preventive health actions in China,” Dr. Zhao continues.
“Non-invasive sampling has many advantages, like the possibility of discovering new complementary biomarkers and superior cost efficiency, and China has shown strong interest towards our E-TRF and biosensors which are specifically designed to analyze non-invasive, biological samples. This is an important step for Aqsens Health as it gives us access to the world's largest single market,“ concludes Aqsens Health’s CEO Timo Teimonen.
Download the press release here.
For more information, contact:
CEO and Co-Founder
Timo Teimonen
+358 40 5853105 | timo.teimonen@aqsens.com
Aqsens Health Oy is a Finnish medtech startup developing non-invasive screening tests for high-impact diseases. The company’s research projects focus on developing saliva-based infectious disease detection fit for the needs of developing economies, and establishing an accurate and cost-efficient urine-based screening test for urinary tract cancers. The tests use Aqsens Health’s novel E-TRF method in combination with phage-biosensors.
Nanjing OG Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is a company focused on pharmaceutical innovations and bioscience technologies. OG Pharma’s research is led by an accomplished international team of scientists from various fields, and the company has been awarded several entrepreneurial honors in Jiangsu Province. OG Pharma is based in Nanjing, just north of Shanghai, and works in broad connection with hospitals in China.
