Japanese firm PHC Corporation and US-based NovaScan have announced the launch of a collaboration through which they will seek to explore the feasibility of MarginScan, an investigational “ex vivo” (outside the body) medical device that will seek to support physicians in detecting non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC).

NovaScan has developed a proprietary technology for detecting the presence of cancer tissue in real-time, and is expanding its business to commercialize its point-of-care platform to medical institutions in the future.

PHC and NovaScan are collaborating to explore feasibility of a device to help enable comprehensive real-time margin detection for NMSC. NMSC are the most common cancers in the world. The American Academy of Dermatology estimates that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime, and the vast majority of these will be NMSC.

One of the proposed uses of MarginScan is to seek to support Mohs surgery procedures for skin cancer treatment. Mohs micrographic surgery is an operative method used to detect the presence or absence of a tumour in the margins of a surgical excision, thus enabling clinicians to minimize the impact on surrounding normal tissue. Currently, Mohs is the only modality for skin cancer treatment that involves comprehensive intraoperative margin assessment.

MarginScan has the potential to help reduce patient morbidity and improve outcomes for both patients and clinicians. This collaboration will integrate PHC’s manufacturing excellence with NovaScan’s advanced technology for detecting carcinoma tissue. The two companies will also explore other potential strategic collaborations to provide new value to patients and healthcare providers in the oncology field.