Singapore, Sep 6, 2010: Australian medical technology company, Circadian, has announced that its subsidiary, Vegenics, has been granted US patent claiming diagnostic kits for the detection of VEGF-D in human samples such as blood.

VEGF-D, a major novel target for cancer and other diseases, has been shown to be a prognostic indicator of survival or disease progression in a number of different cancer types, as well as a biomarker for various respiratory diseases. Circadian is currently undertaking collaborative studies with a number of groups worldwide as part of its development of VEGF-D diagnostics.

Mr Robert Klupacs, CEO, Circadian said, “The use of targeted therapies in human healthcare is becoming more prevalent. In line with this trend, regulatory bodies and clinicians are increasingly in need of validated diagnostic tests to identify selected biomarkers and, therefore, assess a patient’s likelihood to respond to these therapies.

This patent adds to our considerable estate of intellectual property covering VEGF family members, in particular building on the US patent granted to us last year covering VEGF-D antibodies. It is an important protection for our internal programs and represents a major asset for commercial partnerships with other companies seeking to pursue the use of VEGF-D as a biomarker.”

Vegenics owns worldwide rights to an extensive intellectual property portfolio covering angiogenesis targets VEGF-D, VEGF-C and the receptor protein VEGFR-3.