Successful capital raising to support prostate cancer diagnostic

Successful capital raising to support prostate cancer diagnostic

Date added: Monday, 21 June 2010 13:37

Pacific Channel Ltd was lead broker in the placement of shares in Caldera Health to raise $560,000 in start-up funding.

Caldera Health, led by Kiwi scientists, Dr Jim Watson, CNZM, FRSNZ, and Dr Richard Forster, will use the $560,000 to build the company's prostate cancer diagnostic business.

Initially, this will involve developing a 'diagnostic platform' to enable the early detection of prostate cancer using biomarkers - substances that indicate the presence of the disease.

Watson, founder and former chief executive of Genesis Research and Development, and Forster, co-founder of biofuel-technology company, Lanzatech, contend that the biomarkers they have identified will produce more accurate results in diagnosing prostate cancer than those produced using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) approach - a blood test which has proven to be unreliable.

The first round capital will allow Caldera to hire an additional three scientists to test the biomarkers they have identified and provide access to 'state of the art' cancer detection technology. In future, the company plans to use its diagnostic tools to develop treatment regimes using drugs already fully approved and in use in the United States including drugs approved for other cancers but not for the treatment of prostate cancer.

Also on the drawing board, are plans to establish prostate cancer support clinics in major New Zealand cities where the diagnostic and treatment regimes developed by the company will be available to prostate cancer patients.

Watson and Forster both suffer from prostate cancer which is more prevalent in males as prostate cancer tumours require testosterone to grow. About 600 New Zealanders die from it each year, about the same as the number of women who die from breast cancer. With early diagnosis, at least one third of those who die from prostate cancer could be saved, according to the scientists who first worked together 20 years ago.

Both men were misdiagnosed when the PSA test was applied to them. Frustrated by the lack of reliable diagnostic tools and effective treatments, Watson, with a background in steroid hormones and immunology, and Forster, with a background in genetics and biochemistry, began identifying biomarkers that could be used as diagnostics. It is hoped that validation of these biomarkers will be completed by the end of this year.

Caldera's diagnostic and immune programmes will be patented in the United States and a second round of capital raising is anticipated early next year.

Article from Pacific Biotech Bulletin - June 2010

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