Prestige Biopharma Files Domestic Patent for Pancreatic Cancer Blood Diagnostic Platform TASA

Prestige Biopharma announced on August 18 that it has filed a domestic patent application for its pancreatic cancer blood diagnostic platform, 'TASA.' The company is also preparing an international patent application through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) to secure global intellectual property rights.

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to detect early because it generally does not show clear initial symptoms, making early diagnosis technologies increasingly important. The company has focused on pancreatic adenocarcinoma upregulated factor (PAUF) as a means to overcome the limitations of early detection of pancreatic cancer. PAUF is known to be overexpressed in more than 80% of pancreatic cancer patients and plays a critical role in cancer progression and metastasis.

However, PAUF exists in only very small quantities in the blood, so standard analytical methods have limitations in both detection and quantification. To address this, the company's research and development (R&D) hub, IDC, developed TASA, a platform capable of detecting PAUF with high sensitivity.

TASA uses antibodies specific to PAUF and magnetic nanoparticles to separate and concentrate PAUF from blood samples. It then amplifies the detection signal using TAG antibodies, measuring the signal intensity to precisely quantify the PAUF concentration.

When the company evaluated TASA’s PAUF detection performance by testing serum samples from both healthy control and pancreatic cancer patient groups, it confirmed that the pancreatic cancer group showed higher PAUF concentrations compared to the control group. Sensitivity was greater than 72%, and specificity was greater than 82%. Based on these results, the company plans to enhance the diagnostic performance and reproducibility of TASA through additional clinical validation. Furthermore, it intends to expand the technology’s application to various types of cancer by identifying cancer-type-specific biomarkers and the corresponding antibodies.

Soyeon Park, Chairperson of Prestige Biopharma, stated, "By expanding our long-accumulated PAUF research from therapeutic targets to the diagnostics biomarker field, we aim to enable earlier detection of pancreatic cancer through TASA," adding, "Going forward, we will work to complete a PAUF-based pancreatic cancer strategy that spans both diagnosis and treatment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.