PROOF aims to reduce massive health costs associated with organ failure

CECR Profiles

Advances in the scientific underpinnings of personalized medicine are being focused on the growing epidemic in organ failure with a new Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) based in Vancouver. The Prevention of Epidemic Organ Failure (PROOF) CECR will focus on the use of biomarkers to identify those at risk of heart, lung and kidney failure and move to commercialize the results of research through licensing, patenting and spin-offs.

Base at the Univ of British Columbia, PROOF is one of seven health-related proposals that were successful in the inaugural CECR competition and received $15 million over five years (R$, February 25/08).

Organ failure is estimated to cost the Canadian health care system $35 billion annually, with cardiovascular diseases accounting for more than half the total. The objective of PROOF is to dramatically reduce that cost by defining and validating or qualifying biomarkers for heart, lung and kidney failure for clinical practice. Further ahead, plans call for the identification of molecular pathways, networks and molecules that could become targets for new therapeutics.

"We want to identify those at risk for the development of organ failure - primarily those displaying pre-clinical and invisible signs, and identify the molecular signature of risk of early failure," says PROOF director Dr Bruce McManus. "Our team is grounded in a lot of experience with biomarker discovery and development. The interface between the science, the private sector and the health care system is where people need to be."

perfect timing

McManus says CECR funding is intended to bolster established programs and provide research teams like PROOF with the support required to move the enterprise into a "powerful catalytic state".

"CECR came along at a perfect time in our evolution. Whoever put the program together has their finger on the pulse. It's a terrific bridge between discovery and applications," says McManus. "A key goal is sustainability. We have outcome measures built into this."

In addition to CECR funding, PROOF has already attracted $24 million in commitments from various public and private stakeholders — an amount that's expected to increase as the multidisciplinary research team begins to produce results. Efforts will be devoted to educating potential investors and corporate partners on the clinical significance of discoveries in the PROOF pipeline.

PROOF's team of biomarker discovery, validation and genotyping platforms draw on researchers from several universities in British Columbia and Alberta as well as affiliated research hospitals and health authorities. Other major organizations across Canada are expected to come on board once the research gets to the validation and qualification of biomarkers. A large cohort of patients will also be enrolled to produce the biomarkers.

"Even at the stage of intent, there was large-scale interest from health authorities, pharmaceutical firms, the technology development community, the in vitro and diagnostics industry and venture capital," says McManus. "We plan to develop locally and then engage leaders nationally and internationally."

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