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SmallCapVoice.com Inc. (“SCV”) announces the availability of a new interview with Dr. Joe Abdo, CEO of Stella Diagnostics Inc. (OTC Pink: SLDX) (“the Company”), to discuss how the Company’ is raising the standards for precancerous screening of esophageal cancer.
Stella Diagnostics is developing diagnostic tools that help physicians determine a patient’s risk of disease progression in precancerous indications such as Barrett’s esophagus. Barrett’s is most often diagnosed in people with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD or chronic heartburn), which affects over 60 million Americans (one in four adults) and is the only known precursor of esophageal adenocarcinoma (cancer).
The full interview can be heard at: https://www.smallcapvoice.com/interview-stella-diagnostics-sldx/.
Speaking with SCV’s Stuart Smith, Dr. Abdo explains how Stella Diagnostics’ assays quantify the presence of good or harmful protein within biopsy tissue and enhance the current standard of care for Barrett’s screening by providing robust molecular information on the hallmarks of cancer development.
“When we analyze precancerous tissue, we can inform physicians if that tissue is actually possessive of a carcinogenic molecular properties,” he says. “The screening protocol assesses the cell structure, cell organization, cell differentiation of biopsies retrieved during endoscopies. There’s very little if any molecular information that’s being retrieved with the current standard screening for people that have precancerous diseases like Barrett’s esophagus.”
Esophageal cancer is the fastest-rising, deadliest cancer in the United States. Early detection of the disease can significantly increase a patient’s survival rate and quality of life, though current routine screening generally catches esophageal cancers in the advanced stages.
“Our goal at Stella Diagnostics is to have 100% of patients that progress from this precancerous present to their oncologist in stage one or stage zero, where they can actually be cured and not succumb to this very deadly disease,” Dr. Abdo says.
A two-time cancer survivor himself, Dr. Abdo then shares an anecdotal conversation that highlighted the gap between routine screenings and late-stage cancer diagnoses and led to the founding of Stella Diagnostics in 2020.
The goal of the Company’s diagnostic approach is not to replace standard screening protocols, but to rapidly, cost effectively and non-invasively provide superior molecular information that optimizes patient management strategies and leads to earlier detection.
“We want to be used in concert and be a complimentary tool kit for these clinicians to basically make a better-informed clinical decision,” he tells SCV. “When we designed our test, we decided to use a mass spectroscopy because it’s very sensitive or requires very little tissue material. … if we can get the right people in the higher risk bucket, then we think that we can ultimately extend and save lives because they would presumably be presenting to their oncologists in the earlier stages.”
Next, the interview highlights various investment considerations, including the expertise of Stella Diagnostics’ board of directors and executive and research and development teams.
“Stella Diagnostics has a deep bench of experience – biotechnology, asset managers, executive leaders – with decades of experience managing and investing in life science organizations,” says Dr. Abdo, who has more than a decade of experience researching molecular oncology mechanisms in gastrointestinal diseases.
“They’re doing a great job working to position Stella as a standard screening tool for precancerous diseases. … From the regulatory and biotech leadership aspects, and the asset management aspects, all the way through our clinical science and how we’re validating and optimizing our tests with the leading medical institutions in the country, I couldn’t be happier with the team that we currently have.”
This expertise is particularly weighty when you consider the competitive advantage it gives to Stella Diagnostics over its competitors.
“We are above and beyond what the standard of care is because we’re using multiplexable and high throughput mass spectrometry, which is really dependable and yields very high confident yielding proteomic expression reports with rapid turnaround times,” Dr. Abdo says in describing why the Company’s assays trump the method of genomics and histopathology used by other companies.
“We require the least amount of tissue and report on the most molecular disease drivers. So, there is competition, but we’re going to have no problem making a case that our test will be the best for this embattled cohort of patients.”
Stella Diagnostics has multiple collaborative research agreements with leading institutions around the U.S., including Mayo Clinic. For more information on this collaboration and Stella Diagnostics’ technology, SCV points listeners to the Company’s investor page at https://www.stelladx.com/investors/investor-deck-and-news.
