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Over the years, the evolution in healthcare has been remarkable. If we closely inspect the recent years, women’s health has been equally prioritized with several healthcare professionals researching diseases like breast cancer. Also, on the leadership front, people are investing their capital, resources, and expertise into Femtech and Women’s Health. Among the leading women-led biotechnology companies is Mammogen, whose flagship program is focused on early detection of breast cancer, while future products and partnerships are focused on other defined unmet clinical needs within women’s health.
Mammogen was founded with a simple mission, to meaningfully improve every aspect of the women’s health market and to do so by building a company with an overwhelming presence of women at every level. “Less than a year from incorporation, the company is exceptionally proud to report that Mammogen is female-led, has nearly 50% female representation on its Board of Directors, a female majority across its early base of shareholders, and a thriving and diverse community of survivors, previvors and scientific experts who will stop at nothing to detect earlier, diagnose easier, and treat better, from end-to-never-end,” asserts Elizabeth (Liz) Cormier, CEO at Mammogen.
Liz is a veteran in the industry with nearly two decades of experience working in the biotechnology industry. Her journey started as a medicinal chemist for Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, working in early discovery oncology. After realizing her ability to meaningfully impact patient journeys was restricted in this space, she pivoted to creating novel markets within diagnostics, where she was able to have a greater impact on the quality of care and individual journey. Having spent the majority of her career in oncology and women’s health, her experience has helped in building industry-disrupting companies from the ground up. Currently, she is the CEO of and Board Director to Mammogen, Inc., as well as the Chairman of the Board, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Persona Health, Inc., a stealth digital health start-up.
Being an entrepreneur at heart, Liz has found innovative ways to add value to her companies’ end-users, as well as her investors. The consequences of the pandemic have created a unique moment in time for this industry, highlighting that there is a defined need for non-invasive liquid biopsy tests that can quickly, easily, and affordably detect disease. The team at Mammogen is striving to build feasible and affordable solutions for the women’s health market, starting with a focus on women who traditionally do not have access to or who are not eligible for regular and reliable breast health screening and diagnostic tools.
Currently, Mammogen’s genTRU-breastTM consists of two initial non-invasive diagnostic tests positioned to correctly rule more women into breast imaging for further evaluation earlier and also to reduce the number of unnecessary breast biopsies, and the corresponding time, costs, and risk involved in the procedure. The technology is based on RNA expression which enables the genTRUTM platform to get a far better understanding of the patient biology and response to disease, as opposed to other liquid biopsy technologies that are largely focused on tumor-derived biomarkers, such as circulating tumor and cell-free DNA. These technologies struggle to detect disease early because they are capturing genetic information that only results from the dying tumor and often is not present enough in a patient’s biofluids to detect until the later stages of the disease. When the approach is combined with Mammogen’s novel and proprietary biomarker discovery platform, it uniquely positions the genTRU-breastTM program to detect early and accurately.
Mammogen’s program is focused on two populations of women who are traditionally underserved by mammography, women under 40 and women aged 55 years and older. Though a useful diagnostic tool, mammography was never designed to serve women under 40 for two very important reasons. Younger women often have dense breasts and a lower prevalence of the disease. Mammography is statistically no better at disease detection than a simple flip of a coin in this group of patients. This is particularly unnerving when combined with the fact that it is this younger group of women whose incidence is on the rise, who are more likely to be diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease, and who are most likely to recur. Similarly, women 55 and older are only recommended for mammography every other year. Because the incidence of the disease is much higher in this population, physicians are forced to biopsy nearly 2 million women per year upon a positive mammography finding and/or inconclusive ultrasound and MRI results. The issue here is that over 80% of these biopsies are negative, putting over a million women through unnecessary mental anguish, preventable pain and risk, and needless healthcare spending.
Tackling this issue, the team at Mammogen built the genTRU-breastTM program which can easily detect breast cancer from a simple blood draw or saliva sample with sensitivity and specificity significantly greater than current standards of care, regardless of age, history of breast cancer, or genetic predisposition.
With the advent of COVID-19, companies around the world met new challenges of virtual working. However, the IV BioHoldings (IVBH) companies have been virtual since inception, allowing a fluid transition into what became the new normal in business. The IVBH companies are playing a vital part in creating diagnostic tests that will undoubtedly become even more important in a world where physicians and patients are playing catch-up to routine screening after the vast majority of these visits were cancelled due to the pandemic.
This unprecedented crisis has also highlighted the importance of innovation and adaptability. Liz adds, “A global pandemic has proven that we cannot accurately treat a disease if we cannot accurately diagnose it!” This is the basis for all the work at IVBH, which is the bio innovation studio that founded Mammogen, Inc. The innovation at IVBH not only solves early detection across multiple disease states but also creates a hyper-efficiency that offers tremendous flexibility in product development and commercialization. She adds, “Most importantly, it allows us to incubate, develop, and commercialize best-in-class products for patients at a fraction of the time and cost as compared to traditional diagnostic companies.”
Liz and her team are constantly looking to improve the industry and revolutionize the traditional methodologies. While the industry is focused on innovating around the same methods, Mammogen is breaking the mold and applying new ways to approach clinical and commercial problems. “Someone once asked Wayne Gretsky how he was so much better than any other hockey player and his response was, ‘A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.’ We share this mentality at IVBH and Mammogen,” she explains. Mammogen has not only introduced entirely novel technology and performance into the diagnostics market, but is also bringing deliberate focus to its patients and advocacy communities. In the coming months, Mammogen is set to expand its portfolio, with a continued focus on clinical indications that currently have little to no diagnostic capabilities, like endometriosis. Furthermore, by 2023 Mammogen will introduce the genTRUTM breast suite of products into the market. “And you can rest assured that we will always invent and reinvent. This is the only way to survive and thrive in the age of innovation,” concluded Liz.
