Mar 10 2015
Pharmaco-Kinesis Corporation (PKC) and the Ohio Clinical Trials Collaborative (OCTC) today announced that they have agreed to explore the potential of a partnership aimed at the development of technology that provides physicians real-time patient information that once required days to secure.
PKC hopes to engage the Ohio collaborative in testing and research related to the company’s SMART (Simultaneous Multiplexed Automated Real Time Telemedicine) platform. The platform, which involves the use of biosensors linked to the cloud, could allow doctors to collect data about their patients’ conditions in the moment, rather than wait for the completion of laboratory testing and subsequent release of results.
“Our partnership with Ohio’s medical corridor is mutually advantageous,” said Frank Adell, CEO of PKC. “The OCTC brings together and manages the medical infrastructure necessary to develop, test and launch our products. PKC brings the engineering and technology to create biosensors that address unmet needs.”
Added John Peterson, PhD, Executive Director of Global Business Development at the OCTC, “This announcement signals an exciting partnership between a cutting-edge medical device company and Ohio’s biomedical research enterprise. It exemplifies how Governor John Kasich’s vision for the OCTC can bring new business and job growth to Ohio, and make medical innovations more accessible to our citizens.”
Today disease and pathological biomarker testing is time-consuming and often requires using sensitive antibodies. Individual tests can cost upwards of $600 each, and 24 to 48 hours can pass before results are available to physicians.
PKC hopes to reduce the time and expense of such processes through biosensors that would cover a broad spectrum of diseases and infections. The company hopes to secure OCTC’s assistance in testing and development of biosensors for ovarian cancer (OVASMART™), kidney health (RENALSMART™), infectious disease (PATHSMART™) and traumatic brain injury (NEUROSMART™).
In addition, the OCTC ultimately may support clinical trial development of PKC’s Metronomic Biofeedback Pump (MBP), a fully implantable smart infusion device designed to deliver locally chemotherapies or medication over time to a target site with biofeedback.
PKC’s technology received awards from the global consulting firm Frost & Sullivan for New Product Innovation in 2013 and Best Practices in 2014.
One of the strengths of Ohio’s existing collaborative is that it involves accomplished researchers and clinicians from Case Western Reserve and The Ohio State universities, as well as the expertise and facilities of University Hospitals Case Medical Center and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Should the collaborative and PKC proceed to actual testing, OCTC is likely to involve ClinicalRM, a global contract research organization with headquarters in Hinckley, Ohio, for clinical site management and data analysis services to the partnership. PKC, meanwhile, would engage San Diego-based PacificGMP, an expert in antibody manufacture, to supply the antibodies necessary for research and commercialization of the biosensors.