The NAi platform is unprecedented in the volume of information that it outputs. Not only does it identify high-confidence targets, it also provides high-confidence biomarkers – two for the price of one. The target lists feeds our drug discovery pipeline; the biomarkers, our diagnostic pipeline.

A great example is BPGbio’s pstateDx diagnostic panel. Roughly 50% men aged 50-50 and 80% of men aged 70+ suffer from a condition known as benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). When these men receive screening for prostate cancer, they commonly generate a false positive – many diagnostic tests rely upon measuring levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA), a biomarker which is elevated in both BPH and prostate cancer. The result? Roughly one million men annually are required to undergo an invasive prostate biopsy to confirm a prostate cancer diagnosis. At BPGbio we are bringing to fruition a better option for patients – an innovative diagnostic test, pstateDx™ .

In partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD), we used the NAi platform to discover a novel driver of prostate cancer, Filamin A. With the guidance from the NAi platform, our scientists identified a fragment of Filamin A that functions as a biomarker of prostate cancer. Crucially, aggressive prostate cancer has highly elevated levels of Filamin A observed in men with BPH – allowing for BPH and aggressive prostate cancer to be distinguished at an early stage during annual screening. This innovation represents a much-needed advancement in prostate cancer diagnostics, one that can distinguish between a common benign condition (BPH) and aggressive prostate cancer that’s life threatening.