SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 20, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Myriad RBM, a wholly owned subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq:MYGN), today announced that it will assist the Institut Pasteur in a public-private research collaboration to fight the global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic. This research project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through a grant to the Institut Pasteur.
The proof-of-concept study will evaluate patients with latent and active TB infections who are affiliated with the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) clinical study sites. The goals of this study are to field-test Myriad RBM's TruCulture® system as a point-of-care blood collection and immune response monitoring method and to stratify patients with active and latent tuberculosis.
"Tuberculosis is a challenging disease. We need better technology to diagnose patients and assess individual immune response to treatment," said Matthew Albert, co-coordinator of Milieu Interieur and director of the Immunology Department at Institut Pasteur. "Prior studies support the use of the TruCulture system in settings with limited resources, and may help us improve the diagnosis of TB and accelerate the development of new drugs and vaccines to treat the disease."
Myriad RBM will supply the study with its revolutionary TruCulture collection systems. Once the blood samples are collected, Myriad RBM and the Institut Pasteur will seek to discover protein biomarkers important in regulating the immune system response using Myriad RBM's proprietary MAP (Multi-Analyte Profiling) platform.
"We are excited to collaborate with the Institut Pasteur on this important Gates Foundation-funded research program. We believe that TruCulture can help to stratify TB patients with latent versus active disease. This will lead to the optimization of treatments and provide better support for vaccine clinical trials," said Ralph McDade, president of Myriad RBM. "If we are successful, TruCulture may prove to be useful in a multitude of field-based, point-of-care applications, leading to improved patient care."
About Myriad RBM
Myriad RBM is a wholly owned subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. Its biomarker discovery platform provides clinical researchers and healthcare providers with reproducible, quantitative, multiplexed data for hundreds of proteins to advance drug development and patient care. The Company's proprietary Multi Analyte Profiling (MAP) technology offers preclinical and clinical researchers with broad, cost-effective analyses of multiple proteins from a single, small sample volume. MAP technology also supports Myriad RBM's drive to develop companion diagnostics in areas of unmet medical need such as neuropsychiatry, nephrology and immunology. More information about Myriad RBM can be found at www.myriadrbm.com.
About Myriad Genetics
Myriad Genetics is a leading molecular diagnostic company dedicated to making a difference in patients' lives through the discovery and commercialization of transformative tests to assess a person's risk of developing disease, guide treatment decisions and assess risk of disease progression and recurrence. Myriad is focused on strategic directives to grow our markets, introduce new products, including companion diagnostics, as well as to expand internationally. For more information on how Myriad is making a difference, please visit the Company's website: www.myriad.com.
Myriad, the Myriad logo, BART, BRACAnalysis, Colaris, Colaris AP, myPath, myRisk, myRisk Hereditary Cancer, myChoice, myPlan Lung Cancer, BRACAnalysis CDx, Tumor BRACAnalysis CDx, HRD, Vectra and Prolaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Myriad Genetics, Inc. in the United States and foreign countries. MYGN-F, MYGN-G
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to the results of the project with the Institute Pasture potentially leading to the development of novel diagnostics and companion diagnostics; the current findings leading to additional studies and possibly new diagnostic tests for tuberculosis and other diseases, as well as companion diagnostics for therapeutics; insights such as those gained in the current study helping to explain susceptibility to a specific disease or to predict response to immune-modulating therapies; the TruCulture system's effectiveness for monitoring the immune response; developing TruCulture as a novel diagnostic for vaccine response; and the Company's strategic directives under the caption "About Myriad Genetics." These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the risk that sales and profit margins of our molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services may decline or will not continue to increase at historical rates; risks related to our ability to transition from our existing product portfolio to our new tests, including unexpected costs and delays; risks related to changes in the governmental or private insurers reimbursement levels for our tests or our ability to obtain reimbursement for our new tests at comparable levels to our existing tests; risks related to increased competition and the development of new competing tests and services; the risk that we may be unable to develop or achieve commercial success for additional molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services in a timely manner, or at all; the risk that we may not successfully develop new markets for our molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services, including our ability to successfully generate revenue outside the United States; the risk that licenses to the technology underlying our molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services and any future tests and services are terminated or cannot be maintained on satisfactory terms; risks related to delays or other problems with operating our laboratory testing facilities; risks related to public concern over our genetic testing in general or our tests in particular; risks related to regulatory requirements or enforcement in the United States and foreign countries and changes in the structure of the healthcare system or healthcare payment systems; risks related to our ability to obtain new corporate collaborations or licenses and acquire new technologies or businesses on satisfactory terms, if at all; risks related to our ability to successfully integrate and derive benefits from any technologies or businesses that we license or acquire; risks related to our projections about our business, results of operations and financial condition; risks related to the potential market opportunity for our products and services; the risk that we or our licensors may be unable to protect or that third parties will infringe the proprietary technologies underlying our tests; the risk of patent-infringement claims or challenges to the validity of our patents or other intellectual property; risks related to changes in intellectual property laws covering our molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services and patents or enforcement in the United States and foreign countries, such as the Supreme Court decision in the lawsuit brought against us by the Association for Molecular Pathology et al; risks of new, changing and competitive technologies and regulations in the United States and internationally; and other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2014, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to time in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q or Current Reports on Form 8-K.