OncoVista involved in international breast cancer study 

OncoVista Innovative Therapies Inc.’s diagnostic test for the detection of breast cancer will be used in an international breast cancer research study.

TATAA Molecular Diagnostics and its partner, the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Science, will use the Adnatest BreastCancer assays in its research project exclusively. TATAA and the institute are funding the study through a grant furnished from the Czech and Slovak subsidiaries of drug manufacturer Hoffman-La Roche. The assay is used to determine the presence of circulating tumor cells in the body.

The international study is expected to take three years to complete and will enroll patients in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The drug manufacturer is testing the efficacy of its Herceptin drug on patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer. These type of cancers tend to be more aggressive than other types of breast cancer, according to a report on MayoClinic.com. Hoffman-La Roche needs the Adnatest to determine whether Herceptin is effective in slowing the progression of the disease.

San Antonio-based OncoVista (OTCBB: OVIT.OB) is a biopharmaceutical company involved in the development of anticancer therapies. Its subsidiary AdnaGen AG, which is based in Langenhagen, Germany, is marketing a series of diagnostic kits in Europe for the detection of circulating tumor cells in patients with breast, colon, ovarian and prostate cancers.