Antibody test kits to assess stomach cancer risk

From the work of Australian Nobel Prize winners, Biotome is bringing a new antibody test to market, helping to diagnose stomach cancers with the utmost accuracy. The company’s growth has seen some challenges, but with guaranteed returns on Research and Development investments, they’ve are forging ahead with confidence.

Stomach cancers are among the world’s most deadly tumours, but discoveries made in Australia make eliminating this disease a real possibility.

Fundamental to this breakthrough was the work of Barry Marshall and Robin Warren who discovered that a bacterial infection underlies the inflammation that leads to peptic ulcers, gastritis and stomach cancers.

The work included isolating the bacteria responsible for the infection, which they named Helicobacter pylori. They further demonstrated that the bacteria can be eliminated with antibiotic treatment thereby preventing cancer development.

They were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery.

Since then, research has intensified in an attempt to improve clinical outcomes for patients.

Among the leaders rolling out clinical innovations is the biotechnology start-up, Biotome, founded by Samuel Lundin and located in Perth, Western Australia.

?Though identifying the bacteria has been important, a bacterial infection does not indicate which patients are most at risk of cancer.

It turns out about half of all humans are colonised by the Helicobacter pylori bacteria, but not all bacterial variants are equally dangerous; in fact, most people are asymptomatic. Only 10 to 15 per cent experience inflammation and its gastric complications.

“We have to be sparing in our use of antibiotics or we run the risk of the bacteria developing resistance,” Samuel says. “Towards a more targeted approach, I parsed the immune system’s response to these infections, looking for differences we could use as markers for cancer risk.”

The approach paid off. Samuel learnt to detect antibodies in patients’ blood that give away the presence of the really risky bacteria with regards to cancer. The ability to detect these antibodies constitutes the basis for a new generation of diagnostics.

“Conventional tests for this cancer are based on an outdated view of how the immune system works,” Samuel says. “In contrast, the antibodies we detect are specific for molecules that are only present on bacteria that pose a cancer risk.”

?Biotome are working to commercialise the highly accurate antibody test, and identify people at risk for stomach cancer early and who are in greatest need of antibiotic treatment.

Samuel says commercialising the results was the right way ?to go in terms of getting test kits to patients quickly. The approach also creates a foundation to use similar technology to target other diseases triggered by infections, such as cervical cancer and pre-eclampsia.

“Our main challenges are related to raising capital for the development work,” Samuel says. “We need the capital early but we are unlikely to see returns for a number of years.”

To help Biotome get through the difficult early years, Samuel reached out to AusIndustry in 2018, primarily to access the R&D Tax Incentive. There were several ensuing benefits.

“That early help by AusIndustry for us is proving crucial.”

The AusIndustry program provided Biotome with certainty regarding tax returns on money spent on R&D. In turn, that allows Biotome to keep spending on R&D.

“The R&D tax incentive made it possible for us to hire one additional staff without the need to look for additional investment capital, which is the hardest part for a small company,” Samuel says. “That means we could avoid delays in the development work.”

In turn, the further along Biotome gets to launching a product, the easier it becomes to raise capital: “That early help by AusIndustry for us is proving crucial,” Samuel says.

Samuel describes the company’s relationship to AusIndustry as very successful. Biotome now has three scientists hard at work developing several precision diagnostic tools to detect infections and infection-related diseases. Clinical trials of test kits will begin in 2023.

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted to everyone the value of reliable, accurate and fast diagnostic tools,” Samuel says. “That’s the domain we want to contribute to in the future in the form of next-generation antibody tests that identify disease more accurately, efficiently and earlier.”

The technology will be a game changer for patients. Benefits will flow on to patients around the world and in time, will hopefully see stomach cancer drop from the list of the world’s most deadly cancers.