NK Diagnostics (NK Dx)
NK Dx is a healthtech company developing a unique platform for the diagnosis and monitoring of hematological cancers, using NK cells of the innate immune system as reporters for the development of cancer cells in Leukemia, Myeloma and Lymphoma. This new approach represents a major advance in the diagnosis of hematological cancers, considerably simplifying existing protocols, which are often invasive and sometimes unreliable.
In November 2020, NK Dx obtained from SATT AXLR an exclusive worldwide license to a patent filed by Martin Villalba, one of its co-founders. The patent claims the use of quantification, in blood or bone marrow, of NK cells carrying the RA RO phenotype as biomarkers of liquid cancers and their progression. The patent also claims the use of a biological process of trogocytosis (exchange of surface markers between NK cells and cancer target cells) in the diagnosis of hematological cancers.
Gérard Mathis, CEO of NK Dx, emphasizes: "The potential value of this research is extremely high, as the need for specific diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic monitoring markers in oncology is considerable, particularly in view of new approaches to targeted therapies and immunotherapy".
As a disruptive innovation project, NK Dx has been awarded a French Tech Emergence grant from Bpifrance to develop the reagents and methods needed to produce a proof of concept acceptable to the pharmaceutical industry. The grant also aims to use these reagents to conduct a clinical study of a rare disease, primary intraocular lymphoma, in partnership with the Croix Rousse ophthalmology department (Lyon Civil Hospitals). Even today, this lymphoma is subject to diagnostic delays that can last several years. At the end of the program, NK Dx will have qualified reagents and methods, developed in a regulatory environment, to extend the indication to other non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) and meet the demands of the pharmaceutical industry, which needs new biomarkers for the development of new therapies in the field of hematological cancers and the stratification of recruited patients.
At the same time, ND Dx is setting up academic and industrial collaborations to validate relevant targets and develop its products.
The company was founded in October 2020 in Bagnols sur Cèze by Gérard MATHIS ex VP RD of Cisbio Bioassays (now Perkin Elmer), Martin Villalba Research Director and head of an INSERM team at the Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy in Montpellier and Pierre Chavagné ex-CEO and CFO of Cisbio Bioassays (now Perkin Elmer).