Evacyte Corporation's Breakthrough Diagnostic Process Detects Cancer's Ability to Spread; New Technology Will Contribute to New Drugs to Combat Metastatic Cancer.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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AUSTIN, Texas--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 22, 2001

The death toll from breast cancer grows at a staggering rate.

More than 100 women a day die of the disease -- more than 30,000 so far this year with about 10,000 more likely to die before the year ends.

The women at greatest risk are those whose cancer had spread to other parts of the body before it was detected. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, physicians can't tell whether cancer cells have already spread or have the potential to spread. Without this crucial knowledge, doctors may under-treat patients, allowing cancer to continue invading the body, or may recommend unnecessarily painful and expensive treatments as a precaution.

Thanks to new diagnostic technology developed in Austin, that may soon change. Evacyte Corporation's Optical Cell Stretcher will determine whether cells in a tumor have the potential to spread, allowing doctors to more confidently recommend the appropriate level of treatment. In addition, by isolating cancer cells that are capable of spreading, or metastasizing, the Optical Cell Stretcher will provide pharmaceutical companies with the raw materials they need to develop drugs and therapies to defeat the deadliest form of cancer.

"Metastatic cancer causes 90 percent of all cancer deaths," notes biophysical chemist Hal Erickson, Evacyte's co-founder and chief technologist. "However, because cancer is such a complicated disease at the cellular level, developing techniques to detect metastatic cancer has been prohibitively complex and costly. Current diagnostic methods can't detect whether cancer has spread, or is capable of spreading, until the process is well underway. By that time, treatment is much more difficult and less likely to be effective."

According to the American Cancer Society, almost a quarter-million cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year. About one-third of the women diagnosed have cancer that has already spread. The remaining two-thirds don't know whether their cancer is localized or in the early stages of spreading.

If the cancer is localized, it can be treated with surgery and/or radiation therapy. However, if it has begun to spread, chemotherapy is usually prescribed to target cancer throughout the body. With no way to know the severity of their cancer, about 160,000 women each year face great uncertainty in choosing the best course of treatment. An overly conservative approach may allow their cancer to continue spreading, while a needlessly aggressive plan may subject them to painful and costly treatments. Most choose aggressive treatment as a life-saving precaution.

Direct medical costs for treating breast cancer exceeded $14 billion last year, making it more expensive than any other cancer, according to the National Institutes of Health. Because of the prevalence of breast cancer and its great cost in money and human suffering, Evacyte is focusing Optical Cell Stretcher technology on identifying whether breast cancer cells are capable of spreading.

The Optical Cell Stretcher requires a sample from a typical breast biopsy. Cells from the tissue sample are placed between two laser beams and gently stretched. Cancer cells stretch more than normal cells, and cancer cells that are capable of spreading stretch most of all.

"This process is based on a trait shared by all cancer cells," explains Erickson. "Cancer causes a cell's internal polymer support network to deteriorate, which makes the the cell more and more elastic. Eventually it becomes elastic enough to squeeze through the wall of the tumor and into the bloodstream, where it can travel to other parts of the body. Measuring a cell's elasticity is one way to indicate whether it is metastatically competent -- that is, whether it is capable of spreading."

Unlike other diagnostic procedures, the Optical Cell Stretcher does not harm the cells it tests, making it possible to provide pharmaceutical companies with groups of "metastatically competent" tumor cells to be used in drug research and development, according to Dr. Syd Ulvick, Evacyte's vice president of research and development.

"Pharmaceutical companies have been hindered in their efforts to develop drugs and therapies for metastatic cancer not because of a lack of creative scientific talent or financial wherewithal, but rather because of a lack of raw materials -- metastatically competent tumor cells," says Dr. Ulvick.

The Optical Cell Stretcher was invented and patented by University of Texas at Austin biophysicist Dr. Josef Kas and graduate student Jochen Guck. Evacyte has licensed the technology and is developing its commercial applications.

Evacyte was recently honored as the Austin's area outstanding new technology firm at the sixth annual KPMG Austin High Tech Awards. Evacyte was selected to receive the Start-Up Stand-Out category because of the company's impact on human life.