Octave wins grant to develop blood test for measuring MS progression
Funding from Valhalla Foundation will advance objective disease assessment
A new grant from the Valhalla Foundation will help Octave Bioscience advance the development of a biomarker blood test for detecting disease progression in people with multiple sclerosis (MS).
The company is developing its MS Disease Progression test, or MSDP, to objectively measure MS progression based on the levels of certain blood proteins. To date, assessing progression in MS has been subjective, with markers that often don’t detect its early signs.
Octave’s work on the MSDP follows the successful development and commercialization of the company’s MS Disease Activity (MSDA) test — the first blood test to assess disease activity in MS.
With funds from the new grant, Octave will conduct studies to identify individual proteins that may serve as biomarkers of progression, and will then develop an artificial intelligence-based model that analyzes several blood biomarkers to provide a progression score. These studies will help advance the MSDP test toward commercial viability as a complementary solution to MSDA, according to the company.
The amount of the funding was not disclosed.
“Octave is poised to tackle one of the most critical problems facing the MS field, that of reliably measuring the biology of progressive disease,” Jennifer Graves, MD, PhD, senior medical advisor at Octave and professor of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego, said in a company press release announcing the new funding.
“If you can measure something, you can target it. Octave’s delivery of a progressive MS biomarker test will fuel therapeutic development and improved management of the most challenging aspects of MS,” Graves added.
Tracking progression could allow for more personalized MS treatment
MS is caused by the immune system mistakenly attacking the myelin sheath, a protective coating around nerve fibers. The resulting myelin and nerve damage interfere with nerve communication, leading to a range of disease symptoms.
The neurodegenerative disease is highly heterogeneous, meaning its activity and progression can vary significantly among individuals. As such, measuring and predicting disease progression remains difficult, relying on subjective clinical scales and MRI scans that often fail to detect early signs of progression.
Octave’s test will measure several biomarkers and use artificial intelligence-driven algorithms to combine the results into an objective score. This will help clinicians track MS progression and make earlier and more informed adjustments to treatment plans whenever necessary, according to the developer.
Octave’s research to discover and validate unique biomarkers for MS progression has the potential to deliver a transformative measurement tool that provides critical insights for both drug developers and physicians to fundamentally improve the lives of patients.
The test will be delivered as a simple blood test, and is being developed to assess MS progression across all disease types. The company will collaborate with academic partners worldwide to study proteins associated with MS progression in patients, and the findings will be published in a leading journal, per the release.
Sara Allan, president of the California-based Valhalla Foundation, said the new test could prove groundbreaking.
“Octave’s research to discover and validate unique biomarkers for MS progression has the potential to deliver a transformative measurement tool that provides critical insights for both drug developers and physicians to fundamentally improve the lives of patients,” Allan said.
The company’s MSDA test was developed to assess disease activity and help guide decisions on MS care. It is commercially available in the U.S., and measures 18 proteins involved in four underlying biological processes. The results are combined into a numeric score that helps rank disease activity as low, moderate, or high.
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