Rhonda Rhyne, CEO and President of Prevencio.
Rhonda Rhyne, CEO and President of Prevencio.

Prevencio, a Kirkland, Wash., based biotech startup, announced today a successful study on its suite of blood diagnostic tests. The study found that Prevencio’s HART CAD diagnosed coronary heart disease more effectively than standard tests, and also found that the test predicted the risk of future heart attack, according to a release.

The results were presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Rome by Dr. James L. Januzzi, the study’s principal investigator and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“It is impressive the [test] performed well across multiple groups including those without prior known coronary artery disease, those presenting without acute myocardial infarct, and notably in women, who represent a diagnostic challenge,” Januzzi said in a release.

Often, patients who arrive in an emergency room with signs of coronary artery disease are sent straight to a cardiac catheter lab, but a large amount of those end up being misdiagnosed. A quick turn-around test like the HART CAD could reduce the number of patients who undergo costly and risky unnecessary procedures.

Prevencio CEO and President Rhonda Rhyne, a biotech veteran who previously served as president and COO of CardioDynamics, said the study is one more step towards conducting an FDA pivot trial on the test, which is expected in early 2018.

The test measures the level of four different proteins that point to cardiac issues, then uses an algorithm to analyze protein levels and includes other factors like sex and medical history to arrive at a final diagnostic. This algorithm is what sets the test apart from others in the field.

In April, Prevencio announced a $20 million funding round to develop its four HART blood tests. In addition to diagnosing coronary artery disease, the tests can also predict the risk of heart attack within a year, risk of development heart failure, and risk of cardiovascular death, Rhyne said.

Prevencio’s board includes some heavy hitters in the health sciences and biotech arena, including Dr. John F. Cramer III of Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett and a former Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine and Perry Fell, the co-founder of Seattle Genetics and former CEO of NanoString Technologies.  

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