Hanover Medical agrees deal for heart disease marker with Roche

Licensing

Hanover Medical School and Roche Diagnostics Ltd have signed a license agreement giving Roche exclusive rights to use growth-differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15), a biomarker discovered at Hanover, for the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases.

Roche Diagnostics also gets global marketing rights to a cardiovascular test developed at the medical school for the rapid identification of high-risk patients.

The agreement was negotiated by Ascenion GmbH, the life-science IP asset management company.

“The signing of the agreement is a great success in our collaboration with Ascenion,” said Dieter Bitter-Suermann, President of Hanover Medical School.

Researchers at the hospital identified GDF-15 as a marker in the blood of patients with acute coronary syndromes that indicates whether a cardiac catheter examination is required. The risk of severe complications following acute coronary syndromes varies from one patient to another. At present, only ECG findings and results from laboratory analyses can indicate whether a patient is suffering from an instable angina pectoris or has experienced a heart attack. It may take up to 12 hours to make a precise diagnosis.

While a cardiac catheter examination is most appropriate for some patients, pharmaceutical treatment is most suitable for others. Using the new marker, growth-differentiation factor GDF-15, the severity of the acute coronary syndrome can be ascertained by a simple blood examination at the time of hospitalisation. “As soon as the GDF-15 level in a patient’s blood has been determined, physicians can reasonably define the most appropriate treatment scheme for the individual patient,” Wollert said.

Working with Roche Diagnostics, Hanover’s cardiologists have developed a prototype assay for the rapid determination of GDF-15 in blood. “A year ago, the analysis still took about two days. But today, thanks to our automated diagnostic kit, we can determine the GDF-15 level in blood in just 10 minutes,” said Wollert.