NEW YORK and SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Sept. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — miR Scientific, LLC, a healthcare company focused on transforming global cancer management, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, and the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration (“ASES”) join forces today to officially make September 1 “Prostate Cancer Prevention Day”. This urgent awareness team effort occurs while the pioneering cooperation continues, as Puerto Rico has for the past year conducted clinical studies for a prostate cancer liquid biopsy breakthrough test developed by miR Scientific.
Puerto Rico has one of the highest rates of prostate cancer in the world and this is the leading cause of death (17%) related to cancer in men.
“The high incidence of mortality among Puerto Rican men due to prostate cancer on the island is of great concern to all of us. It is time to take concrete action and join forces to educate our men about the importance of screening and early detection for prostate cancer,” Governor Pedro Pierluisi declared during the signing of a proclamation making September 1, “Prostate Cancer Prevention Day”, highlighting the unprecedented role that Puerto Rico’s urologists have played in developing the studies for this new technology that will contribute to the emergence of the island as a leading center for medical innovation.
“The breakthrough miR Sentinel® Prostate Test developed by miR Scientific is non-invasive and can accurately detect prostate cancer as well as classify the risk category of the disease based only on a single urine specimen and without the need for invasive biopsies. This will allow us to manage the disease much better and focus on high-risk patients who are in need of definitive treatment quickly,” said Jorge Galva, Executive Director of ASES.
“The prevalence of prostate cancer in Puerto Rico is a real health emergency and this is an urgent call for men to get tested”, said Sam Salman, Chairman and CEO of miR Scientific. “We are joining forces to urgently share this message with Puerto Rican men and their loved ones. This is a battle that, until now, we were losing largely because men resist getting tested. It’s this widespread resistance, and the fact that many men don’t get checked until their sixties, that is causing so many unnecessary deaths due to a totally treatable type of cancer. We are hoping that bringing awareness to this health emergency, and the availability of our liquid biopsy later this year will make a huge difference in Puerto Rico and the world.”
miR Scientific’s award-winning miR Sentinel® Prostate Test is a standalone, non-invasive liquid biopsy urine test that can, from a single urine specimen, accurately detect molecular evidence of prostate cancer and then classify the severity, or the risk grade, of the malignancy. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) awarded the proprietary high-throughput technology Breakthrough Device Designation last year.
“The past two years have involved intense work and the formation of amazing alliances between miR Scientific and local doctors, government and business leaders to bring this breakthrough technology to Puerto Rico. We will be ready to commercialize the miR Sentinel® Prostate Test later this year, but we consider it our duty to create awareness immediately of just how bad this problem is on the island”, says Mindy Figueroa, miR Scientific Country Manager for Puerto Rico. “As a Puerto Rican myself, I know very well that even talking about this subject matter is something that men avoid at all costs. We are hoping that our award-winning test will create an easy way to get Puerto Rican men screened for prostate cancer”, added Figueroa.
The miR Sentinel® Prostate Test is expected to be commercially available in the United States and Puerto Rico at the end of this year.
About miR Scientific:
miR Scientific, LLC is a healthcare company committed to transforming global cancer management by providing early and highly accurate detection, characterization and monitoring of disease. The Company has developed the miR Disease Management Platform®, a proprietary, non-invasive platform for the effective management of targeted diseases, initially focused on urological cancers.
The platform is powered by the miR Sentinel® Prostate Cancer Test, a liquid biopsy urine test that can accurately detect, classify and monitor prostate cancer based on the interrogation of small-non-coding RNAs extracted from urinary exosomes. miR Scientific is developing interoperable products and services necessary to revolutionize the standards of care supporting urologic oncology, including for prostate, bladder, and other urothelial cancers. Such new standards are urgently needed given the prevalence of these cancers and their debilitating burden globally. miR Scientific is a majority-owned operating subsidiary of Impact NRS LLC, headquartered in New York City with operating subsidiaries in Israel, Canada, and Puerto Rico. For more information visit mirscientific.com.
Press: for more information:
Puerto Rico:
Ada Torres-Toro
[email protected]
USA:
Carrie Rubenstein
[email protected]
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SOURCE miR Scientific, LLC
