Spartan Bioscience, a maker of precision medicine diagnostic solutions, has established a new scientific advisory board (SAB) in Europe for cardiac stent patients that consists of international clinical and academic interventional cardiologists. The company says the role of the SAB will be to advise and support Spartan on its current and future clinical programmes and product roadmap.
A Spartan press release also states that the European board will be supplemented with a North American team to be announced at the American College of Cardiology conference (ACC 2020; 28–30 March, Chicago).
The members of the European advisory board are: Dirk Sibbing (Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany); Gilles Montalescot (Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France); Marco Valgimigli (Inselspital Universitätsspital, Bern, Switzerland), and Davide Capodanno (University of Catania and Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele, Catania, Italy).
The company statement explains that Spartan’s precision medicine test identifies whether or not a patient carries a CYP2C19 mutation. More than 30% of the world’s population, and 50% of Asians, carry the mutation. CYP2C19 is a liver enzyme that metabolises 15% of all prescribed drugs, including antiplatelet drugs. Spartan says that its rapid, portable test allows real-time, near patient determination of the patient’s genotype, aiding in determining the appropriate antiplatelet treatment, leading to better patient results and lower cost healthcare. The press release says that Spartan technology has been used in several landmark clinical studies, including, POPular Genetics, a 2,500 patient, eight-year study in Europe published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and announced at the European Society of Cardiology. In addition, it was used in TAILOR-PCI, a 5,300 patient, seven-year study funded by the Mayo Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Spartan says that TAILOR-PCI is the largest trial of genetics in cardiology, and results are scheduled to be announced at ACC 2020.
