Could this start-up turn the tide on ovarian cancer?

Nearly 225,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer globally every year, but over 50 per cent of them will not survive. Could this biotech start-up have the solution?

March marks Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month – a chance to put ovarian cancer in the spotlight.

The disease causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system and, according to the American Cancer Society, will kill in 2024 12,740 women in the US alone.

Despite this, awareness remains low. New data from Target Ovarian Cancer shows that, while progress has been made, things are not moving fast enough, with 40 per cent of UK women confusing cervical cancer and ovarian cancer.

“We don’t have enough awareness and advocacy around ovarian cancer to elevate the importance of the disease the way we do around breast cancer,” says Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, co-founder and CEO of the biotech start-up AOA Dx.

She believes this is directly linked to the low incidence of the disease – there are about 240,000 new cases of breast cancer in the US every year, compared to just under 20,000 of cases of ovarian cancer.

However, she says: “While we don’t see hundreds of thousands of cases, the percentage of women who die of ovarian cancer is significantly higher than almost any other gynaecological cancer.”

Ovarian cancer’s high fatality rate is largely attributed to a failure to recognise symptoms early on and a series of misconceptions around the disease, such as the idea that ovarian cancer is a “silent killer”.

Papin-Zoghbi agrees. Most of the things we hear about ovarian cancer, she says, are not actually true.

“Around 87 per cent of women with ovarian cancer experience symptoms early on, but they are misconstrued for different things.

“The vague abdominal symptoms that we hear about are commonly mistaken for conditions like endometriosis or irritable bowel syndrome because there is no diagnostic to differentiate them.”

Currently, the only way to confirm an ovarian cancer diagnosis is a tissue biopsy. Most women have a biopsy during an operation called laparotomy, where the surgeons make a large cut down the middle of the abdomen to take samples of tissue.

However, in some cases, doctors have to remove an ovary and have it tested for signs of cancer to confirm a diagnosis.

Papin-Zoghbi and her team at Boston-based AOA Dx are aiming to develop the first early-stage ovarian cancer liquid biopsy diagnostic test, which could significantly cut down fatalities and make the diagnosis process less invasive.

“The fact that 80 per cent of women are diagnosed with stage three and four ovarian cancer is unacceptable. Women need a much better chance,” she says.

“We are hoping that our solution will help elevate our understanding of ovarian cancer.”

The technology has shown over 90 per cent accuracy for detection of ovarian cancer and raises hopes for thousands of women globally. However, it will take time.

“There are certain that are not in our control,” says Papin-Zoghbi.

“It takes up every waking moment to build a company, but we have a strong team and we are very positive about the the path forward.

“We closed a US$17m financing round in October and we are currently focusing on building our lab, developing our product pipeline and conducting our clinical study to validate our technology. In the next couple of years, our aim is to focus on product development and clinical study data ahead of thinking about how we will bring the product to market.

“We’re optimistic – we know we can have a transformational impact on women’s health.”