Canterbury University spin-out Tiro Lifesciences aims to transform breast cancer screening with $600,000.
New Zealand-based Tiro Lifesciences, a spin-out of Canterbury University, has raised NZD 600,000 ($443,000) to commercialise breast cancer screening technology.
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world, and is the second most common cause of cancer-related death in women in the country, with 2,700 diagnosed each year. Roughly 40% of women have dense breast tissue, which both increases the risk of breast cancer but also makes it harder to screen for via X-ray mammographs.
Marcus Haggers, CEO of Tiro, said: “X-ray mammography is utilised for breast cancer screening in women over 45 years of age. The limitation of X-ray mammography in dense breast screening is that healthy dense tissue has virtually the same X-ray absorption characteristics as cancerous tissue, making it difficult or impossible to spot certain cancer cases on a mammogram image.
“Tiro Lifesciences is developing a new era of breast cancer screening. The system does not rely on absorption of X-rays (or any other radiation source) and is therefore free of the issues affecting X-ray mammography in dense breast cases. We carried out a small clinical study last year which has improved the system in preparation for a larger clinical trial later this year.”
Investors in the latest round were not disclosed. However, the company has previously raised NZ $450,000 in the form of a repayable grant from commercialisation firm Callaghan Innovation, and counts Canterbury as a shareholder.
