We were delighted that Jon Burrows, CEO of Oxford Biodynamics and Matthew Wakefield, Chair, were able to update on the progress the company has made over the last year at a Yellowstone Advisory webinar. A recording of the event is available here.
Oxford Biodynamics has gone through a significant change of focus and reorganisation of business fundamentals over the last 12 months and there are now three clear pillars to maximising the potential from their EpiSwitch® technology and driving revenue. The three pillars are all linked and all will be important if the company is to achieve its potential.
The first area is in providing clinical diagnostic tests to help physicians improve their diagnosis of patient conditions and enabling these medics to make informed decisions about their patient’s care. OBD’s first test, the Covid Severity Test was launched in 2021 and can determine the risks of severe illness due to Covid. The test has taken longer to come to market and there are no figures yet on revenue or expected revenues but the test is in the market and the company are receiving enquiries. A lot of the learnings from taking this test to market have been applied to their “flagship” Checkpoint inhibitor Response Test (CiRT) for immune-oncology, which is the diagnostic focus for 2022. This test is expected to launch in February and management are optimistic about its success. To watch a short video explaining the benefits of CiRT please click here.
The CiRT determines a patient’s likely response to immune-oncology (IO) checkpoint inhibitor treatment, which costs around $15k/month ($180k per annum). This treatment can be very successful but only works in c30% of patients and a large proportion actually have adverse reactions (toxicities)to the treatment. There is still a very big potential market for the test with c500k patients considered for this treatment each year. In the key US market, a reimbursement code has been indicated by healthcare insurance providers that can bill at $2600 to $3500 per test, under the miscellaneous test classification. It should be pointed out that initial reimbursement is likely to be approx.. 50% of that. Optimism for success is based on the award of the PACT consortium grant to establish EpiSwitch® as an industry standard, interest from oncology specialists in the presales process currently being undertaken, as well as interest in the test from pharmaceutical companies who want to…
