St. Louis, MO, April 21, 2025 – Cicadea Biotech, LLC, who is revolutionizing how we detect cancer by providing a non-invasive early detection solution to detect kidney cancer announced the award of a Phase I NSF SBIR/STTR grant in support of the development of a urine test for kidney cancer detection.
This grant will support further development of a novel, non-invasive kidney cancer screening test for use prior to imaging, to reduce radiation exposure risk and costs from imaging tests, to enable earlier cancer detection, and to serve as a preventive screen for high-risk populations (age 50 to 75). A positive diagnosis through the proposed screening test will result in healthcare providers proceeding with confirmatory imaging tests for further analysis and diagnosis. Using this test, malignant tumor cells in the kidneys and urinary tract will be detected in urine specimens, allowing for the initial detection of cancer and monitoring molecular residual disease (MRD). Due to the current lack of an effective biomarker or screening test for kidney cancer, there is significant commercial potential for the proposed test.
If the proposed project is successful, the work will pave the way for developing and offering the test as a Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) service through a single validated clinical lab, and later pursuing FDA approval as an in vitro diagnostic device (IVD). This noninvasive test will be more easily accepted by a broad range of patients from different cultural backgrounds. As a result, this will help to increase the survival rate of kidney cancer patients who are diagnosed at an early stage without symptoms.
“We are at the beginning of an exciting collaboration with the National Science Foundation to further develop our proprietary platform for developing a preventive test for kidney cancer,” said Lucy Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Cicadea Biotech. “We look forward to leverage this partnership to expand our existing services into clinical services that can increase survival rate of kidney cancer patients”.
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