NovaScan, PHC Corporation Working on Skin Cancer Detection Device

PHC Corporation and NovaScan Inc. are teaming up to explore the feasibility of MarginScan, an investigational “ex vivo” (outside the body) medical device that will help detect non-melanoma skin cancer.

“We look forward to collaborating with NovaScan to provide solutions in the pathology diagnostics field, leveraging our expertise in highly reliable medical device development. PHC is also committed to accelerating the development of point-of-care technology that enables highly convenient testing, to contribute to our mission of improving the quality of healthcare around the world,” said Hiroyuki Tokunaga, a PHC Corporation board member and director of the company’s In Vitro Diagnostics Division.
 
PHC is a subsidiary of PHC Group,¹ a global healthcare company. PHC’s In Vitro Diagnostics Division has collaborated with partners for more than 30 years to develop and manufacture high-performance medical devices including blood glucose monitoring systems to help support effective medical treatment. NovaScan is engaged in clinical-stage diagnostics and tissue detection in the oncology field. NovaScan has developed proprietary technology for detecting the presence of cancer tissue in real-time, and is expanding its business to commercialize its point-of-care platform to medical institutions in the future.
 
PHC and NovaScan are collaborating to explore feasibility of a device to provide real-time margin detection for non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC), the most common cancers in the world.² The American Academy of Dermatology estimates that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime, and the vast majority of these will be NMSC.³ One of the proposed uses of MarginScan is to seek to support Mohs surgery procedures for skin cancer treatment. Mohs micrographic surgery is an operative method used to detect the presence or absence of a tumor in the margins of a surgical excision, thus enabling clinicians to minimize the impact on surrounding normal tissue. Currently, Mohs is the only modality for skin cancer treatment that involves comprehensive intraoperative margin assessment. MarginScan has the potential to help reduce patient morbidity and improve outcomes for both patients and clinicians. This collaboration will integrate PHC’s manufacturing excellence with NovaScan’s advanced technology for detecting carcinoma tissue. The two companies will also explore other potential strategic collaborations to provide new value to patients and healthcare providers in the oncology field.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with PHC Group, a provider of oncology diagnostics solutions and medical devices. Our platform technology enables in vivo and ex vivo cancer detection, in real time and without expensive capital equipment or the need for steep clinician learning curves,” NovaScan CEO Craig Davis stated. “We believe that MarginScan has the potential to be employed in standard of care procedures for the most common cancers in the world. PHC is a collaboration partner that can make this a reality, in skin cancer and beyond.”
 
Established in 1969, PHC Corporation is a Japanese subsidiary of PHC Holdings Corporation, or PHC Group, a global healthcare company that develops, manufactures, sells and services solutions across diabetes management, healthcare solutions, and diagnostics and life sciences. PHC Corporation provides medical devices, as well as develops research and medical support equipment for new modalities in life sciences. PHC Group subsidiaries also include Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings AG, Epredia Holdings Ltd., and LSI Medience Corporation. 
 
NovaScan is a venture-backed, clinical stage oncology company that has developed a low cost, point of care platform for real time cancer detection and stratification. NovaScan’s platform is active in lung, breast, skin, and GI.
 
MarginScan is trademark of NovaScan Inc.

References 
¹ Generic name for PHCHD and its operating subsidiaries
² Source: World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Skin Cancer www.iarc.who.int/cancer-type/skin-cancer/
³ Source: American Academy of Dermatology Association www.aad.org/media/stats-skin-cancer