TreeHouse Health Announces Graduation of Portfolio Company, Cellanyx Diagnostics
Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) March 02, 2016 -- TreeHouse Health (TreeHouse-Health.com), an innovation center designed to invest in emerging healthcare companies and help accelerate their growth, announces the graduation of Cellanyx Diagnostics, a company focused on developing a first in-class live cell phenotypic diagnostic platform to stratify risk and aid shared decision making for patients with prostate and other cancers.
Cellanyx’s initial test fills a critical need in the estimated 250,000 US patients annually diagnosed at biopsy with low or intermediate risk prostate cancer by the traditional pathology method, Gleason scores, to stratify risk of aggressive disease. Low and intermediate risk Gleason scores (6 and 7) do not reliably predict the risk of aggressive disease in these patients, leading to significant overdiagnosis and overtreatment. The Cellanyx test aims to provide actionable information at biopsy to predict disease progression and spread in Gleason 6 and 7 patients by assessing cancer cell behavior; information that is currently only accessible following surgical removal of the prostate.
Cellanyx Diagnostics joined TreeHouse Health in January 2015, following initial analytical validation of the prostate cancer phenotypic biomarker platform. Since then the company raised additional capital and conducted a successful clinical proof-of-concept study in tissue from radical prostatectomy patients. Promising early data on the live cell phenotypic biomarker risk stratification in breast, kidney and bladder cancer in addition to the prostate cancer clinical proof of concept study have been presented at multiple, leading scientific meetings.
While at TreeHouse Health, portfolio companies have access to leading established healthcare organizations, clinical collaborators, payers, investors, and other expert resources. These benefits, along with tangible resources like office space and cash investment, are intended to help portfolio companies grow their revenues and secure follow-on funding. Once TreeHouse Health portfolio companies have sufficient traction, they are typically ready to graduate from TreeHouse Health.
“TreeHouse Health, through the resources and connections with clinical collaborators, private payers, and capital it has provided to Cellanyx, has been instrumental in our progress to date,” said Ashok Chander, PhD, CEO of Cellanyx. “Cellanyx is pleased to be a part of the TreeHouse Health family and looks forward to continuing its partnership towards its mutual growth, and success.”
“Cellanyx has made great progress in the past 14 months. They continue to generate tremendous data and are positioned to positively impact the care of millions of patients while also driving value to our healthcare system at large. We look forward to their continued success and are proud of what they accomplished while at TreeHouse Health,” said J.D. Blank, Managing Director of TreeHouse Health.
Currently, the Cellanyx team is focused on laying the groundwork for a clinical trial in patients undergoing prostate needle biopsies, and working towards commercialization of the prostate diagnostic test in 2017. The majority of the Cellanyx team operates out of Boston, Mass. TreeHouse Health is actively seeking out additional portfolio companies to join the innovation center.
About TreeHouse Health LLC
TreeHouse Health, established in 2013, is an innovation center that helps emerging healthcare companies accelerate their growth by facilitating collaboration with Anchor Tenants while simultaneously providing investment, expertise and guidance around business development and brand exposure. To date, TreeHouse Health has invested in ten early-stage healthcare companies and has two Anchor Tenant relationships with Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (BCBS). To learn more, visit TreeHouse-Health.com.
About Cellanyx Diagnostics
Cellanyx Diagnostics is developing a proprietary live cell phenotypic cancer diagnostic platform to aid clinical decision making. The company’s unique ‘biopsy-on-a-chip’ methodology provides quantitative, actionable assessment of individual cancer cells in biopsy samples using multiple phenotypic biochemical and biophysical markers of tumor aggressiveness and metastatic potential. Cellanyx has demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept with its lead product in development, a diagnostic to improve risk stratification in men with low and intermediate grade prostate cancer. Learn more at http://www.cellanyx.com.
Holly Janiszewski, TreeHouse House, http://www.TreeHouse-Health.com, +1 612-486-5934, [email protected]
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