Oncimmune Appoints Dr James Jett, World Recognised Lung Cancer Specialist, as Chief Medical Officer

NOTTINGHAM, England, November 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Oncimmune, a leader in early cancer detection, today announced the appointment of Dr James Jett, as Chief Medical Officer.

Dr Jett is currently Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at National Jewish Health in the USA, where his research includes conducting clinical trials related to the screening and early detection of lung cancer. Prior to joining National Jewish Health in 2010, he held appointments as Professor of Medicine at Mayo Medical School and the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr Jett joins Oncimmune on 1^st January 2016 and will be based in the US. He will support all aspects of the Company's research and development as Oncimmune continues the further commercialisation of EarlyCDT®-Lung on a global basis and the launch of new EarlyCDT® cancer tests.

Dr Jett has been the principal investigator on the National Jewish Health study on EarlyCDT-Lung, interim results of which were presented at World Lung Cancer conference in September 2015^[1]. He has also published and presented results of an audit of Oncimmune's first 1600 commercial tests.^[2]

Commenting on his appointment, Dr James Jett said: "I have followed Oncimmune's science and the development of the EarlyCDT-Lung test for many years. Oncimmune has pioneered autoantibody testing for cancer and EarlyCDT-Lung can play an important part in the early detection of lung cancer and the significant improvement in patient prognosis that early detection brings. Current data suggests it will also have a role to play in risk assessment of CT nodules. I look forward to working with the team as they continue to build on the technology's potential."

Geoffrey Hamilton-Fairley, CEO of Oncimmune commented: "As a world-recognised lung cancer specialist, James' experience and insight could not be more relevant to the work we are doing at Oncimmune around the continued development and commercialisation of EarlyCDT-Lung. His clinical expertise and experience in overviewing and designing trials will be of great value to the company as we expand into other cancers. James is well acquainted with our science and validation data and it is an honour to welcome him to Oncimmune."

EarlyCDT-Lung is being used in the world's largest randomised trial for the early detection of lung cancer using biomarkers ever conducted; the National Health Service (NHS) Scotland ECLS study of more than 10,000 high-risk smokers. Early results were recently presented at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer; showing a high cancer detection rate with the majority of these cancers being early stage, resulting in better than expected test performance.

About Dr James Jett 

Dr Jett's research interests focus on the screening and early detection of lung cancer. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute and he was part of a research team that discovered how CT screening can be an effective tool to detect lung cancer early in high-risk patients.

Dr Jett is board certified in internal medicine and pulmonary medicine, and he completed his medical degree at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in thoracic diseases at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, and a research fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. He is on the Scientific Advisory Committee for the American Lung Association and was an External Review Chair for the Terry Fox Research Institute, Lung Cancer Grant.

Dr Jett has served in journal review and editorial activities for many medical publications, including the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Cancer, Chest, International Journal of Cancer, Lung Cancer and The New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Jett was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology from 2006 to 2012 and he is currently the Co-Editor of the Lung Cancer Section of the electronic textbook "Up-To-Date".

About Oncimmune 

Oncimmune is an industry leader in early cancer detection. The company has pioneered the development of autoantibody assay technologies that have the potential to allow earlier cancer detection than other methods and can be applied to a very wide range of solid tumour types. The Company's proprietary EarlyCDT® technology platform was launched in 2009 and EarlyCDT®-Lung is available through physicians in the US and also privately in the UK and other regions. EarlyCDT® tests for liver and ovarian cancer are in final validation.

Oncimmune is headquartered in Nottingham, United Kingdom with testing facilities in the US.

For more information: http://www.oncimmune.com

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1. Jett JR, Dyer D, Kern J, Rollins D, Phillips M. Screening for Lung Cancer with the Early CDT-Lung and Computed Tomography. J Thor. Oncol 2015 10: S2, 306.

2. Jett JR, Peek LJ, Fredericks L, Jewell W, Pingleton WW, Robertson JFR. Audit of the autoantibody test, EarlyCDT®-Lung, in 1600 patients: an evaluation of its performance in routine clinical practice. Lung Cancer. 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lungcan.2013.10.008 .

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SOURCE Oncimmune