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Proove Biosciences Wants to Market Data on Pain

Irvine-based Proove Biosciences wants to diversify its lineup of offerings to complement the tests it provides to help physicians evaluate pain tolerance and identify risk for dependence and addiction.

The company currently gets all of its revenue from U.S.-based customers from the tests but wants to add sales of its data.

“We have built the largest biobank on chronic pain, and we not only have genetic data, we also have outcome data— what medications patients are taking [and with what] side effects, change in their pain score,” said Brian Meshkin, chief executive and founder of the company. “We want to license out our data to industry, to academia, to government. They can buy our data to use it for research purposes, and if they reach any predictive research analytics, we will commercialize that. We want to crowdsource innovation. That’s a major focus in 2017.”

The company, which launched in 2009, has 300 employees and notched $17.5 million in revenue last year, a performance that helped Meshkin win honors at the Business Journal’s 15th Annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship awards in March.

Proove ranked No. 69 on Deloitte’s 2016 Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies, both public and private, in North America. The winners are selected based on fiscal year revenue growth percentage from 2012 to 2015. Revenue is projected to reach $28 million this year.

The company’s patented bioinformatics platform provides tests that combine genetic and clinical data to help physicians individualize and optimize medicine selection and dosing.

Proove Biosciences offers 11 tests in all. Orders are placed by doctors, who also collect patients’ genetic information using a cheek swab. The typical turnaround time for genetic analysis is eight hours. Doctors order between five to six tests on average. The top five ordered tests include pain perception, opioid risk, opioid response, nonopioid pain medication response and drug metabolism genetic profile. Misuse of opioids, an opium-like compound usually prescribed to treat pain, can lead to overdose or addiction.

“The major problem with our healthcare system is how decisions are made,” said Meshkin. “It’s not that there are no good drugs and devices out there, but if you look at how we diagnose and understand pain—‘On a scale of one to 10, how severe is your pain?’—that’s irrational decision making. Our approach is precision medicine treatment, to figure out precisely what is going on with [a patient] to individualize treatment.”

Chronic pain is estimated by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine to affect more than 100 million Americans and accounts for $635 billion in healthcare cost and lost productivity.

Pabban Payout

The U.S. Court of Appeals has turned down a request from Medtronic Inc. that would have gotten the diversified device maker off the hook for more than $15.4 million in damages it’s been ordered to pay Irvine-based Pabban Development Inc.

A jury in the U.S. District Court for Central Califonia ruled two years ago that Kyphon Sarl LLC, an affiliate of Medtronic, was responsible for the damages for breaking the terms of their 2008 acquisition deal.

Medtronic acquired back-surgery device maker Kyphon Inc. in 2007 for $3.9 billion. Kyphon makes a balloon device that is used to treat hunched backs caused by spine fractures. The procedure inserts small, inflated balloons in the fractured area to help restore the height of the spine. After the balloons are deflated and removed, the cavity is filled with bone cement to promote healing.

The Federal Trade Commission, however, ruled that its acquisition of Kyphon could only go through if Kyphon sold its bone cement delivery system. The Kyphon system was sold to a DePuy Spine Inc. for about $100 million. DePuy is a Johnson & Johnson company.

Medtronic proceeded to acquire Natrix, Pabban’s bone cement system for spinal surgery, in 2008 for as much as $50 million in a deal that included an upfront payment of nearly $18.8 million and milestones.

Medtronic paid the first $18.8 million installment but balked at making further payments, claiming that Pabban had concealed problems with the Natrix system. Pabban sued Medtronic in March 2010.

Dublin, Ireland-headquartered Medtronic has U.S. operations based in Minnesota, and significant operations in Orange County.

Bits & Pieces

Newport Beach-based Integrated Oncology Network Holdings joined the American Cancer Society and the CEOs Against Cancer California Chapter to collaborate on an effort to educate and raise money for the women of India. Jeffrey Goffman, chief executive of Integrated Oncology, said the “All Me” campaign will teach girls and women in Delhi and the Tamil Nadu area of the country to focus on early detection of cervical and breast cancers. India has about 17% of the world’s population and accounts for approximately 25% of the world’s cervical cancer deaths (see related story on page 3).

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