Glide Pharmaceutical Technologies exclusively licensed a prostate cancer diagnostic technology from FScan, a Durham University spin-out company. As part of the agreement, Glide will pay an undisclosed upfront fee, development and commercial milestone payments, and royalties on future product sales.
Additionally, Glide has exclusive rights to FScan diagnostic technologies for use in other conditions. A Glide Pharma official said the technology uses lanthanide complexes for the noninvasive, rapid, and accurate measurement of citrate levels in seminal fluid. The link between citrate levels and prostate cancer provides the opportunity to develop an effective diagnostic test, according to Glide.
With approximately 24 million prostate-specific antigen tests conducted each year in the U.S. alone, Glide intends to provide the technology initially as an analyte-specific reagent in the U.S. The company plans to develop a prostate cancer diagnostic test and to pursue regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe.
“Licensing this novel diagnostic technology is an important strategic step for Glide as it broadens both our pipeline and technology base, offers the potential of early revenues, and longer-term plays to our strengths in device development and scale-up,” said Mark Carnegie-Brown, Ph.D., CEO of Glide. “We believe this innovative technology has the potential to revolutionize the prostate cancer diagnostic market, where there is a clear need for an accurate, rapid noninvasive test.”