Todos Medical acquires Provista Diagnostics and its breast cancer blood test, Videssa as well as diagnostic lab for $7.5M

Todos Medical Ltd (OTCQB:TOMDF) has acquired Provista Diagnostics Inc, a US-based medical diagnostics that owns the intellectual property rights to proprietary breast cancer blood test Videssa and has a diagnostic lab currently performing coronavirus (COVID-19) PCR testing.  Under the terms of the agreement, Todos said it has acquired Provista from its private equity owner for $7.5 million, consisting of an initial cash payment of $1.25 million, the issuance of $1.5 million in Todos shares priced at $0.0512 each, the issuance of a $3.5 million convertible promissory note, and payment on for before July 1, 2021, of $1.25 million. The company said Videssa was developed to provide physicians with actionable information regarding breast cancer risk in women following an inconclusive mammogram result (BI-RADS III or IV), which primarily occurs in women with dense breasts.  READ: Todos Medical initiates Phase 2 clinical trial in Israel of Tollovir to treat hospitalized coronavirus patients Todos said the results provided by the test -- which has demonstrated specificity of 98%-plus in both women over and under the age of 50 -- arms physicians with a powerful tool to help guide decisions of whether to continue to monitor a low-risk patient intermittently, or whether to advance an at-risk patient immediately into a more expensive and invasive diagnostic assessment that generally includes a breast biopsy (which carries a high false-positive rate).  “Videssa is a well-positioned diagnostic blood test for breast cancer with several peer-reviewed publications in well-respected medical journals demonstrating its ability to help physicians triage patients with dense breasts who regularly show inconclusive results on mammogram, a problem affecting well over 20% of women in the United States,” said Dr Jorge Leon, chief medical and scientific officer for oncology and infectious disease at Todos, in a statement. “Todos’ proprietary TBIA platform will be able to piggyback on the sample volume we anticipate generating from Videssa in order to further refine its algorithms and begin deploying our proprietary TBIA immunosurveillance blood testing assay for breast cancer, colon cancer and other cancers. We believe this strategy will allow us to dramatically accelerate the timeline of bringing TBIA into the market in the United States and allow us to scale that platform more rapidly.” Meanwhile, Todos said it has already delivered and installed automated extraction systems Tecan and other liquid handler machines as well as 384-well PCR machines in order to help position Provista to dramatically ramp up its COVID-19 PCR testing capacity in the second quarter of 2021.  Provista lab Todos said it intends to build Provista into a highly automated lab capable of running multiple platforms in parallel to offer clients comprehensive testing solutions, especially in cancer, infectious disease, immune monitoring, and Alzheimer’s disease. Provista’s lab already has ELISA and PCR testing capabilities onsite. “The acquisition of Provista gives Todos a US-based home for its proprietary diagnostic platforms in spectroscopy, flow cytometry, ELISA, PCR and next-gen sequencing,” said Todos CEO Gerald E. Commissiong.  “As Todos expands from being a supplier of COVID-19 testing automation and reagents to labs into a company also running its own COVID-19 testing lab, the supply chains and relationships we have built in working closely with Provista’s highly competent staff over the last year will serve us extremely well." He added: “In the immediate term, we intend to focus on expanding Provista’s COVID-19 PCR testing business and deploying new assays capable of confirming whether the viral strain of a positive COVID-19 sample is from one of the known variants, as well as building assays to help monitor long-hauler COVID-19 patients who are likely at higher risk for other diseases based on the damage inflicted on their immune system. "With COVID-19 testing as the initial commercial anchor to our Provista lab strategy, we will also now be able to validate our lab-based TolloTest 3CL protease enzymatic assay in the US and begin deploying it to monitor this biomarker of emerging importance in COVID-19, especially in concert with clinical researchers evaluating novel anti-viral therapies for COVID-19.”  Contact the author: patrick@proactiveinvestors.com Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMGraham