With a growing incidence, cardiovascular diseases affect over 125 million patients globally every year, and are the leading cause of death in developed countries. pERSUASIVE will focus on diagnostics of chronic coronary syndrome (CCS), which could generate revenues of over 28 million by 2029.

Many patients present to the general practitioner (GP) with chest pain or atypical symptoms such as shortness of breath, reduced exercise tolerance, which can point to CCS. CCS is a serious pathology that can lead to a heart attack and subsequent death, so early recognition of CCS is of utmost importance for patients. Chest pain is very common and the reason for 4% of all GP visits. When referred to the hospital >80% of these patients turn out to not have CCS. This results in a tremendous burden on health care with respect to patient management, efficiency and costs. A diagnostic test for identifying CCS patients in the GP setting is lacking.

A simple blood test that can identify the chest-pain patients with SA from patients that have chest pain due to non-cardiac causes will be a tremendous step forward. Cardiologists and scientists of the UMC Utrecht (UMCU) have discovered that an extracellular vesicle protein signature can identify SA patients in the GP setting. This patented biomarker signature will be developed as a new diagnostic test.

Results to date indicate that the current blood test, based extracellular vesicle protein biomarker signature, could identify especially female patients with stable angina (AUC 0.87). A male protein signature has also been identified and is currently being validated in the same large cohort (3300 patients) as the first biomarker signature. NLC established the company PERSUASIVE BV which has obtained its first funding and together with the UMCU researchers is further developing the early diagnostic business case for CCS.