Future Opportunities
Beyond Transplant: Opportunities in AutoImmune and Inflammatory Diseases
Immune-mediated conditions are caused by undesired immune-system activities, referred to as "rejection" in the context of transplants and disease activity or "flares" in the context of autoimmune diseases like lupus. For most immune-mediated conditions, including rejection in heart transplant and flares in lupus, it is difficult to manage and anticipate rejection or disease activity in an accurate and non-invasive manner.
AutoImmune diseases include more than 70 different disorders affecting between five to eight percent of the U.S. population, or between 14 and 22 million people. Providing physicians with new clinical tools can help them more effectively manage the treatment of many of these patients with difficult to assess immune system activity. We are considering developing tests to manage transplant rejection in other solid organs such as the kidney. We are also considering tests for several other autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Pharmaceutical Collaboration Opportunities
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies are increasingly embracing the notion of personalized medicine and drug treatment regimens that are tailored to the genetic makeup and variability between patient subgroups or even individuals. This approach promises to allow for a more efficient performance of clinical drug development studies and to support providing “the right drug to the right patient” through the use of companion diagnostic tests.
XDx is well positioned to assist in the development of biological markers for clinical trial use and in the development and commercialization of companion diagnostic tests in the immunology field. Our expertise and infrastructure in areas like gene expression technologies, molecular biology, bioinformatics and statistics, clinical trials, clinical laboratory operations, regulatory, and marketing and sales make XDx a partner of choice for pharmaceutical and biotech companies wanting to pursue biomarker and companion diagnostic work in this therapeutic field.