OPKO Health to Acquire Prost-Data

OPKO Health, Inc. OPK has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Prost-Data, Inc., doing business as OURLab, a Nashville-based CLIA laboratory with 18 phlebotomy sites throughout the U.S. and an experienced national sales force calling primarily on urologists. OURLab provides OPKO with a commercial platform to support the near-term U.S. commercial launch of its novel panel of kallikrein biomarkers and associated algorithm (4Kscore™) for the detection of prostate cancer. The OPKO 4Kscore™ is the result of a decade of research by scientists in Europe and the U.S. and has been demonstrated in more than 10,000 patients to predict the probability of positive biopsies in men suspected of having prostate cancer. Extensive studies have shown that the use of the 4Kscore™ may reduce the number of unnecessary prostate biopsies by 50% or more, avoiding the frequent complications of pain, bleeding, and infection, which sometimes require hospitalization. The data indicate that even with the significant reduction in the number of biopsies performed, the probability of delaying diagnosis of a high grade cancer was only 0.6%. Men whose 4Kscore™ is low enough to not lead to biopsies would be followed with active surveillance by the urologist.