Biomarkers for Predicting Preterm Birth

General Information

Preterm delivery is the number one complication of pregnancy affecting more than 10% of all pregnancies. It is the leading cause of illness and death associated with newborns. Compared with babies born at term, infants born prematurely have a 40-fold increase in neonatal death and are at significantly increased risk for major medical complications such as cerebral palsy, chronic respiratory illness, blindness and deafness. Furthermore, long-term neurologic and developmental problems have been identified in as many as 70% of children with birth weight less than 1.5 lbs. These complications are associated with billions of dollars of direct costs and unrealized potential each year just in the United States.

Despite the significance of the problem, there is uncertainty as to what occurs in the body that leads to preterm labor and delivery. Consequently, the ability to effectively treat these problems is still limited, but there are measures that doctors can take if they have adequate time. If one could predict who was likely to experience this problem, the mother could be given medications that might delay or even prevent labor. Additionally, there are hormone derivatives that if administered to the fetus can hasten lung maturity and reduce one of the major complications of early birth. However, at present there is no way of knowing who is at risk to develop this complication of pregnancy.

Scientists at the Brigham Young University and the University of Utah have developed the first reported serum proteomics approach that utilizes capillary liquid chromatography, electrospray ionization, time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Using this novel serum proteomic method, they have found significant differences in the quantities of some biomolecules in the serum of pregnant women who go on to have a preterm birth weeks to months later. This proteomic approach not only allows these differences in concentration to be observed, in many cases it also allows the molecule to be identified unequivocally. Their research has identified a number of these molecules, all of them peptides, that are significantly reduced in pregnant women long before they have any signs or symptoms of preterm labor and delivery.

There are currently no other useful biomarkers for predicting preterm labor or preterm delivery. Consequently, the peptides identified provide for an unmet medical need. We anticipate that assays measuring just these markers could identify more than half the women who will have a preterm birth.

The Market

In the U.S. there are over 4,000,000 live births every year. A blood analysis to determine the presence of these discovered peptides could be part of a universal screening process that already takes place for other diseases or complications of pregnancy. Such tests cost in excess of $100 per analysis. The global market represents potentially several times this number of assays performed or sold each year.

Inventor(s): Dr. Steven W. Graves, Dr. M. Sean Esplin

Type of Offer: Licensing



« More Medical Patents

---