ProSCAN, by Glycanostics

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the 2nd most frequent cancer in men with 1.4M new annual cases and nearly 0.4M deaths worldwide in 2020. PCa incidence is expected to increase to 2.1M cases and 0.6M annual deaths by 2035. Statistically, 1 in 8 men will get PCa in their lifetime.

However, nearly most of cancer deaths can be avoided if diagnosed at early stages. Survival is proportional to the stage reached at the time of diagnosis – hence early-stage diagnostics is key to reduce mortality. PCa symptoms are very similar to other benign conditions, making accurate early-stage diagnostics challenging using currently available laboratory methods.

Moreover, a biopsy is needed to confirm PCa, but such treatment is painful, costly & causes health complications for men. The most shocking is the fact that many biopsies are negative and thus are avoidable. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the accuracy of non-invasive diagnostics and to decrease the socioeconomic burden associated with avoidable biopsies.

ProSCAN is an affordable, non-invasive next-gen & early-stage liquid biopsy PCa diagnostic test with a final accuracy of up to 90%. The ProSCAN is the first test for early-stage PCa diagnostics based on glycan (complex carbohydrate) analysis in blood.
ProSCAN will separate healthy men from those ones at risk of PCa, who need a confirmatory biopsy. Being so accurate, ProSCAN will eliminate ~1.6M of avoidable biopsies with the cost of ~€1.5bn (in the EU and the US alone).