GMP Companies obtains worldwide license for new discovery to increase accuracy of genetic testing.

GMP Companies, Inc. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL; 954-745-3510), a new medical technology development corporation, has licensed the exclusive worldwide rights to an important new discovery by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD) that dramatically increases the accuracy of genetic testing for cancers in certain cases to 100 percent. Genetic testing for other inherited diseases which have been associated with genes will also be significantly more accurate utilizing the new technology.

"The reason this new technology is important is that up to half of all people who now seek genetic testing come away with no clear answer because the tests are not sensitive enough to detect a given mutation," according to Bert Vogelstein, MD, a distinguished professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator whose previous landmark gene research led to the first blood tests for colon cancer. "Now we can tell them with much greater certainty whether they have inherited specific genetic predispositions for colon cancer. It is likely that the technology will foster similar increases in sensitivity for many other disease-related mutations," he added.

Vogelstein, Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD, and Kenneth W. Kinzler, PhD, professor of oncology at Hopkins, led the team at Hopkins that discovered the new technology and co-authored a report describing it in the journal "Nature."

The new technology, called "Conversion," converts the usual "diploid" or paired versions of genes that people inherit from their parents to separate "haploid" status, or two single alleles. This separation technique permits subsequent individual analysis of both alleles using genetic probes that identify DNA sequences. Because normal copies of DNA sequences on one allele can mask or hide mutations or deleted DNA sequences on the other allele, conventional genetic tests that analyze both copies at the same time can frequently miss a deletion or mutation linked to disease.

Conversion Technology, according to GMP Companies' president and chief executive officer Bart Chernow, MD, "is an important discovery that will significantly enhance genetic testing, so that for the first time it will be possible to confidently and reliably inform people about many disease risks, and to help them make decisions about prevention and about treatment."

A blood test that utilizes Conversion Technology for individuals at risk for hereditary colorectal cancer and familial adenomatous polyposis, another form of inherited predisposition for colorectal cancer, will be commercially available this summer as part of the full genetic testing and counseling services at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Chernow expects that the Conversion Technology will be available this summer for genetic tests for other cancers and inherited diseases, as well.

Under terms of the licensing agreement with Hopkins, the Conversion Technology is exclusively licensed by GMP Companies for all worldwide commercial applications. GMP Companies was formed in May 1999 to facilitate the commercialization of novel medical pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and device technologies that have a high likelihood of helping people with the most widespread and costly diseases and disorders. GMP Companies plans to provide all of the infrastructure support for commercializing technologies, including corporate, securities, patent, regulatory, marketing, and legal support; business, financial and administrative expertise; clinical and biotechnological evaluation; and executive recruitment services.