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Castle Biosciences Announces Issuance of First U.S. Patent Covering DecisionDx-Melanoma
FRIENDSWOOD, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Castle Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSTL), a skin cancer diagnostics company providing personalized genomic information
About this update from Castle Biosciences, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":" FRIENDSWOOD, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nCastle Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSTL), a skin cancer diagnostics company providing personalized genomic information to improve cancer treatment decisions, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued the Company its first U.S. patent related to the DecisionDx®-Melanoma gene expression profile test for patients with cutaneous melanoma.\n\n\nPatent No. 10,577,660, issued on March 3, 2020, covers methods of treating cutaneous melanoma in patients having high-risk cutaneous melanoma tumors. The inventors discovered that patients having high-risk cutaneous melanoma tumors can be identified by the gene-expression profile signature of their cutaneous melanoma tumors. The term of the patent extends until September 2034. This brings the total number of issued or allowed patents related to the Company's DecisionDx-Melanoma test to 10.\n\n\n“We are pleased to have been issued our first U.S. patent covering DecisionDx-Melanoma,” said Derek Maetzold, Castle’s president and chief executive officer. “In the United States, we estimate approximately 130,000 patients are diagnosed with Stage I-III cutaneous melanoma each year. The clinical use of DecisionDx-Melanoma is designed to optimize post-diagnostic treatment decisions, including sentinel lymph node biopsy, frequency of follow-up and the need for imaging, which we believe will lead to improved health outcomes for patients with skin cancer.”\n\n\nCastle Biosciences’ DecisionDx-Melanoma test is a 31-gene expression profile prognostic test for cutaneous melanoma that predicts 5-year risk of metastasis as low risk (Class 1, 1A lowest risk) or high risk (Class 2, 2B highest risk), as well as metastasis to the sentinel lymph node, based on an individual patient’s tumor biology.\n\n\nAbout DecisionDx-Melanoma\n\n\nDecisionDx-Melanoma is a gene expression profile test that uses an individual patient’s tumor biology to predict individual risk of cutaneous melanoma metastasis or recurrence, as well as sentinel lymph node positivity, independent of traditional staging factors, and has been studied in more than 5,700 patient samples. Using tissue from the primary melanoma, the test measures the expression of 31 genes. The test has been validated in four archival risk of recurrence studies of 901 patients and six prospective ...