News

AOA Dx News & Press Releases

May 30, 2024

AOA Dx Welcomes Abigail McElhinny, PhD, as Chief Scientific Officer

AOA Dx is announcing the addition of a Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Abigail McElhinny. Dr. McElhinny comes from a background in leadership in oncology diagnostics. This experience will be transformative for the AOA Dx team.

April 9, 2024

CEO and Co-Founder Oriana Papin-Zoghbi selected for the TITAN 100 list, recognizing the top 100 CEOs & C-level executives in Colorado

AOA Dx is excited to announce that our CEO, Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, has been selected for the TITAN 100 list. The list highlights Colorado’s most accomplished business leaders in their industry.

October 12, 2023

AOA Dx secures $17 Million to revolutionize the diagnosis of ovarian cancer with early detection and high accuracy, and to expand their GlycoLocate™ Platform to target a broader range of cancers

AOA Dx is announcing an oversubscribed $17 million round led by Good Growth Capital with participation from leading investors including RH Capital, Y Combinator, Astia Fund, Adaptive Capital Partners, Gore Range Capital, LongeVC, The Helm, VU Venture Partners, and FemHealth Ventures, along with strategic diagnostic investors, including Labcorp Venture Fund. Several funds invested for the second time, underpinning the continuous success of AOA Dx across the last year.

August 23, 2023

CEO and Co-Founder Oriana Papin-Zoghbi selected for Bloomberg New Economy Catalysts

AOA Dx is excited to announce that our CEO, Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, has been selected for the Bloomberg New Economy Catalysts and will represent the women's health industry at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore.

April 11, 2023

AOA Dx’s First Peer Reviewed Study Accepted for Publication in Prestigious Journal Frontiers in Oncology

AOA Dx, a biotech company developing a new frontier in early-stage cancer detection through its work in glycolipids, is proud to announce the company’s first published peer reviewed clinical study.

January 5, 2023

AOA Dx Announces First Patient Enrolled in OVERT Clinical Study Evaluating the AKRIVIS GD™ test for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer

AOA Dx today announced that the first patient has been enrolled in their OVERT (Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Research) clinical trial. The OVERT trial is a multi-center national trial, the first of its kind in a symptomatic U.S. population. AOA Dx is working with world renowned clinicians and healthcare institutions across the US to bring to market the first test for the early detection of ovarian cancer.

December 6, 2022

AOA Dx Announces Initial Validation of Novel Tumor Gangliosides as Promising Diagnostic Markers for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer

AOA Dx announces initial validation of GD2 and GD3 tumor marker gangliosides as novel diagnostic markers for early detection of ovarian cancer. AOA Dx results will be presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.

November 10, 2022

Massachusetts Innovation Network Announces AOA Dx as the Award Recipient of Three Awards at The Eddies

AOA Dx is proud to announce the company has won the Life Science award, the People’s Choice Award, and the Robert J. Crowley award at the Massachusetts Innovation Network’ signature innovation competition, The Eddies. The Robert J. Crowley award honors those embodying the values of breakthrough thinking, passion to improve lives and unwavering commitment to the spirit of advancement.

September 27, 2022

AOA Dx Co-Founders Oriana Papin-Zoghbi and Anna Jeter Named to Inc.’s 2022 Female Founders 100 List

AOA Dx  is proud to announce that  co-founders Oriana Papin-Zoghbi and Anna Jeter have been named to Inc.’s 2022 Female Founders 100 List. Inc.’s fifth annual Female Founders 100 list honors a bold group of 100 women whose innovations and ideas are shaping the world into a better place. Collectively, the 2022 honorees’ companies are estimated to be worth more than $22 billion.

September 13, 2022

AOA Dx Closes $7 million Funding Round to Bring the First Accurate Early Detection Test for Ovarian Cancer to Market

AOA Dx Inc is proud to announce that they have closed both of their seed rounds totaling a $7 million funding round led by Avestria Ventures, AlleyCorp, The Helm, RH Capital, Olive Tree Capital, Tencent and other notable investors. The funding will be used to further develop the next generation of AOA’s ovarian cancer detection technology, AKRIVIS GD™ and expand their growing team. Currently, there are no reliable ovarian cancer biomarkers that detect early stage disease.

August 5, 2022

AOA Dx was selected for MassChallenge’s 2022 US Early-Stage Cohort

AOA Dx is excited to share that the company has been selected to participate in the MassChallenge 2022 accelerator program, joining more than 200 startups. AOA Dx was one of over 1,000 other startup applications for this year’s program.

June 13, 2022

AOA Dx Announced As Finalist For The Eddies, Massachusetts Innovation Network’s Signature Innovation Competition

AOA Dx is proud to announce the company has been chosen as a finalist for Massachusetts Innovation Network’ signature innovation competition, The Eddies. Finalists will have the chance to participate in this 5-month, no-cost, no-equity innovation-support program that includes individualized mentoring, strategic guidance, leadership education, and connections to resources.

February 10, 2022

AOA Dx Welcomes Women’s Health Industry Leader Surbhi Sarna as an Independent Board Member

AOA Dx is excited to announce the appointment of Surbhi Sarna as an Independent Board Member. Sarna is most recently known for becoming Y Combinator’s first-ever partner for healthcare and biotech. Sarna is the founder and former CEO of nVision Medical, a medical device company that to date, is the only device cleared by the FDA to collect cells from the fallopian tube, the known site of the most lethal forms of ovarian cancer. nVision Medical was acquired by Boston Scientific in 2018 for $275 million.

January 10, 2022

AOA Dx Featured in The Journal of Precision Medicine

AOA Dx Inc is proud to annouce that they were featured in "The Journal of Precision Medicine, titled "Tumor Glycolipids, a New Frontier for Early Detection and Precision Medicine in Ovarian Cancer and Other Malginancies". The paper was authored by AOA's Chief Scientific Officer H. Uri Saragovi, PHD, AOA's Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer Anna Milik Jeter and Samantha A. Yee, a PhD cancidate at UT San Antonio.

August 30, 2021

AOA Dx Signs Exclusive License Agreement with Professor H. Uri Saragovi to Secure a Suite of IP Related To Early Detection of Cancer Through a Novel Quantification of Tumor Ganglioside in Liquid Biopsies

AOA Dx Inc has signed an Exclusive License Agreement with Professor H. Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University, to secure a suite of IP related to utilizing gangliosides for early cancer detection through liquid biopsies.

August 16, 2021

Chief Scientific Officer of AOA Dx Has Been Awarded $650,000 by the Canadian Institute of Health Research

AOA Dx Inc is proud to announce that their Chief Scientific Officer, Prof. H. Uri Saragovi has been awarded a $650,000 CAD grant for further development of a proprietary liquid biopsy test for early stage ovarian cancer. AOA has an exclusive license agreement to the proprietary technology. In addition to serving as AOA Dx’s Chief Scientific Officer, Prof. Saragovi is the Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University

June 28, 2021

AOA Dx Gets Y Combinator’s Backing and Raises $2.5 Million Seed Round to Develop First Non-invasive Ovarian Cancer Liquid Biopsy Diagnostic Test 

AOA Dx Inc is proud to announce that they have been accepted to Y Combinator’s 2021 summer cohort and have closed a $2.5 million seed round to develop AKRIVIS GD   , a liquid biopsy test that is set to revolutionize the future of ovarian cancer diagnostics.  AOA Dx has been working in close collaboration with world renowned cancer researcher Professor H. Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University.

June 16, 2021

AOA Dx Announces MassNextGen $87,500 Non-Dilutive Funding from Massachusetts Life Science Center

AOA Dx Inc is proud to announce that they were awarded $87,500 and access to coaching from an exclusive network of Executive Coaches through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center’s 2021 MassNextGen Program.  The program is focused on women-led early stage life science companies and is sponsored by Takeda, King Street Properties, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

May 20, 2021

AOA Dx & Prof. Uri Saragovi Awarded $100,000 CAD by the Canadian Institute of Health Research for the Development of Early Stage Ovarian Cancer Diagnostic

AOA Dx Inc is proud to announce a $100,000 CAD award in collaboration with Prof. Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University for further development of a proprietary liquid biopsy for diagnosis of early stage ovarian cancer.​ The funding will support ongoing development of AKRIVIS GD     , a diagnostic test for ovarian cancer. The technology is based on novel method of quantifying tumor marker gangliosides in blood. This unique approach allows to diagnose ovarian cancer in early stages of the disease.

January 4, 2021

McGill University’s Clinical Innovation Competition supports the development of Prof. Uri Saragovi’s research on ovarian cancer tumor markers. AOA Dx to lead development and commercialization

AOA Dx Inc is excited to announce that they will be working with Professor Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University, to lead the development and commercialization of a simple blood test for quantitative detection of ovarian cancer tumour markers.  Therapy for ovarian cancer, the “silent killer”, is 80% effective, but the five-year survival rate is 9% due to late diagnosis and recurrent disease. Early diagnosis would offer greater opportunity for curative therapy.

January 4, 2021

RQRM Grant Awarded to technology licensed by AOA Dx. Prof. Uri Saragovi and Dr. Anne-Marie Mes-Masson were awarded a grant from the RQRM for initial tumor-ganglioside screening studies to enable early detection of cancers

AOA Dx Inc is proud to announce that Professor Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University, in collaboration with Dr. Anne-Marie Mes-Masson of the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM) were awarded a grant from the Réseau Québécois de Recherche sur les Médicaments (RQRM). The work supported by the grant is the first of many steps demonstrating that gangliosides are an accurate and reliable marker to detect early stage cancers, and that tumor-gangliosides can be exploited for diagnostics in liquid biopsies. This award further demonstrates that world-leading scientists, such as Prof. Saragovi and Dr. Mes-Masson, are getting ever closer to accurate early-stage cancer diagnosis.

January 4, 2021

AOA Dx Files US Patent (No. 63,087427) for the identification of gangliosides as markers for ovarian cancer

AOA DX Inc is pleased to announce it has filed a US Patent (No. 63,087427) for the compositions and methods of ovarian cancer diagnosis. This is an important step in making a cost-effective, accurate and simple liquid-biopsy test for ovarian cancer diagnosis widely available. The application gives 20 years of patent protection for the methods, lasting until at least 2040. The filing protects the intervention of accurate detection of ovarian cancer.

January 4, 2021

AOA Dx signs exclusive option agreement to commercialize cancer diagnosis technology from Professor Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator with the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor at McGill University

AOA Dx Inc announces that it has signed an exclusive option agreement with Prof. Uri Saragovi providing exclusivity to develop and commercialize new cancer diagnostic technology.  Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic cancer and the third cause of death in women. Tumors are classified based on cell type and further subdivided into benign, borderline and malignant (carcinomas), according to the aggressiveness. High Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer (HGSOC) is the most malignant and is labelled “the silent killer”. Symptoms are vague and easily confounded with other conditions. More than 70% of patients present to the clinic at advanced stages of disease, when surgical and therapeutic treatments become ineffective at extending life-span.