Panacea Pharmaceuticals Announces the Availability of BC Detect(SM), a Serum- Based Diagnostic Test for Bre...( GAITHERSBURG Md. Oct. 17 /- Panac...)

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Oct. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that BC Detect(SM), the Company's serum-based breast cancer diagnostic test, is now available from Panacea Laboratories. BC Detect(SM) is a simple blood test that should facilitate the identification of recurrence among women successfully treated for breast cancer. Panacea Laboratories, a division of Panacea Pharmaceuticals, is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA). The blood sample can be ordered by any physician and sent to Panacea for testing; sample and shipping requirements are available at http://www.panacea-labs.com.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women accounting for 26% of female cancers. One in every eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, placing the lifetime risk at 13%. More than 200,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2007 and upwards of 2 million women are currently breast cancer survivors. Five-year survival rates for breast cancer are 98% for localized disease, 83% for regionally spread and 26% for distantly spread cancer. However, 25% of all metastases occur more than 5 years after the initial diagnosis and thus survival rates decrease as time goes out to 10 years due to disease recurrence. Methods to detect initial presentation of breast cancer as well as recurrence rely on imaging modalities, including mammography and MRI. No serum biomarkers have been approved for either primary breast cancer screening or monitoring for disease recurrence primarily due to relatively low specificities and sensitivities. In asymptomatic women in remission from breast cancer the guidelines of the major oncologic organizations only suggest annual mammography for detection of new tumors.

BC Detect(SM) measures levels of human aspartyl (asparaginyl) beta- hydroxylase (HAAH), a cancer molecular
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