With seven patents approved and another seven pending, 5-year-old Saladax will introduce its first chemotherapeutic-dose testing tool to U.S. oncologists this spring under a license to Myriad Genetic Laboratories.
Then, over the next two-and-a-half years, the Bethlehem-based firm expects to produce a lineup of five additional assays that enable physicians to prescribe more accurate doses of high-potency medicines for cancer patients. Longer term, the firm is developing tests for patient-tailored dosing for a total of 15 high-potency drugs, including all major therapies for breast cancer.
At the heart of Saladax’s innovation, says President and COO Adrienne Choma, are patent-protected, monoclonal-antibody-based testing products that give accurate measures of a patient’s dosage needs. Based on scientific work directed by co-founder Sal Salamone, a former Vice President of Research and Development for Roche Diagnostics (where Choma was VP of Marketing and Sales before the two founded their own company), Saladax offers a much more carefully calibrated basis than a patient’s body mass–the most widespread current determinant–for dosage levels of chemotherapeutic agents and other highly potent and often toxic drugs.
“We’ve developed simple tests that entail easy blood sampling and processing–similar to standard blood testing used in a doctorsÂ’ office. Our tests will provide dosing guidance to oncologists,” she says.
Already approved for sales in Europe, Saladax’s initial product for the U.S. market determines dose levels for one of the oldest and most widely used chemotherapy drugs, 5-FU (5-fluorouracil), a drug used by about 165,000 patients in the United States each year and that provides the foundation for all colorectal cancer chemotherapy treatments.
Early next year, Saladax, which since 2004 has been a resident of the Ben Franklin Business Incubator in Bethlehem and has received $550,000 in funding from BFTP Northeast, hopes to have FDA approval of a test for Busulfan, a preparatory drug for bone marrow transplants. Then, as the company develops new capital, it expects to bring to market 13 additional products, for a total of 12 in the field of oncology and three tests for anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs.
Source: Saladax, Adrienne Choma
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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