Startup to Develop Blood Test for Unstable Coronary Artery Disease

A startup accelerator, Academic Technology Ventures (academictechventures.com), is building a new biomedical startup company with an invention created at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The startup, HealthCheck, is based on a biomarker discovered at UNMC that could help doctors and cardiologists more accurately diagnose different types of coronary artery disease. HealthCheck’s blood test could give healthcare providers the insight to predict which patients are likely to develop the more dangerous, unstable form of coronary artery disease.

Coronary artery disease is the accumulation of plaques inside the arteries. Recent research has shown that virtually everyone, regardless of age, has some form of the disease. Some people have a stable, non-life-threatening form of the disease. Others have the more dangerous, unstable version. Telling the difference between stable and unstable coronary artery disease has been a stubborn riddle of medicine until a trio of UNMC scientists developed the new blood test. The inventors are Geoff Thiele, Ph.D., a professor of internal medicine; Michael Duryee, a research coordinator in the College of Medicine; and Dan Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., a professor and practicing cardiologist at UNMC and Nebraska Medicine.

Additional capital still needs to be raised to support further testing, which will be used to secure FDA clearance. HealthCheck will hopefully enter the market within the next two or three years.