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“THE GOAL WAS TO TAKE THAT PRELIMINARY DEVELOPED TEST, VALIDATE IT AND IF THE RESULTS WERE POSITIVE THEN
MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO MEN GLOBALLY” — CATALINA VASQUEZ, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, NANOSTICS INC.
ClarityDX Prostate is an easy-to-do blood test that is three times more accurate at detecting prostate cancer, and provides critical support to men, aged 40-75, in making more informed decisions about whether a biopsy is required following a high PSA test result.
“As part of standard care, a man with
an elevated PSA will have a second PSA test to confirm it,” explained Catalina Vasquez, chief operating officer of Nanostics Inc. “So instead of having that second PSA, we have our test. Our test will tell the doctor and the patient if they need to go for the biopsy or not. We wanted to come up with a test that could improve on PSA so that we can avoid unnecessary biopsies and that’s exactly what we did.”
Clarity DX Prostate is a blood-based diagnostic test that provides a risk assessment based on clinical and biological biomarkers to help patients and their physicians make informed decisions after elevated PSA test results.
“Basically, our test is three times better than PSA in doing this,” said Vasquez, noting the research couldn’t have happened without funding from organizations like Alberta Innovates. “What we wanted to do was to develop better tests to increase the ability
of PSA to say who does not have prostate cancer. That’s what we wanted to do, so we started a program under the University of Alberta called the Alberta Prostate Cancer Research Initiative, so it was funded mostly by philanthropy.”
Currently, ClarityDX Prostate is a laboratory-developed test that has been approved by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA).
“We went to CPSA, we presented the results of the test, they were very supportive of it, so we went through the entire accreditation process,” Vasquez said.
After an auditing process, accreditation was granted in the summer of 2023.
The launch of ClarityDX Prostate in Alberta was due to outstanding support from the health and sciences community as well as great access to health care in the region.
“The goal was to take that preliminary developed test, validate it and if the results were positive then make it available to men globally,” Vasquez said.
ClarityDX Prostate is currently accessible in Alberta, and Nanostics is actively working on partnerships to expand its distribution network across Canada, the United States and Europe.
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