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Study: Avid’s Imaging Dye Can Detect Alzheimer’s From Scan - ICAD 2010 presentation Sunday 11th July 2010WSJ Blogs Health Blog WSJ's blog on health and the business of health. Avandia, Qnexa Mean a Big Week for FDA Advisory Committee July 12, 2010, 1:23 PM ET.Study: Avid’s Imaging Dye Can Detect Alzheimer’s From Scan By Katherine Hobson Back in April the WSJ wrote about the race to develop ways of detecting Alzheimer’s disease using a brain scan. Currently only a post-mortem sampling of brain tissue can provide a definitive diagnosis. But the hope is that a technology that could be used in living patients could help rule out Alzheimer’s in some patients and for those that have the disease, allow its symptoms to be treated more quickly. (The progress of the disease itself cannot be slowed.) The general idea is to inject a compound into a patient containing molecules that bind to the amyloid plaques that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s. Because the compound also contains a radioactive marker, it makes plaques visible on a PET scan. Now there’s good news about one of the technologies the WSJ has written about, a compound called florbetapir developed by Avid Radiopharmaceuticals. A study abstract released at a meeting of Alzheimer’s researchers shows a strong association between the results of those brain scans and the actual location of plaques determined after death, Bloomberg News reports. Another study presented at the conference looked at people with mild cognitive impairment, which can precede Alzheimer’s. It found that 22% of patients with plaques identified using florbetapir (vs. 3% of those without plaques) progressed to full-blown Alzheimer’s within a year, Bloomberg reports. Avid’s CEO told Bloomberg the company would apply for FDA approval of the compound this year. As the WSJ reported earlier, the Alzheimer’s diagnostic and biomarker market is expected to reach $2.8 billion in 2014, up from $1.1 billion last year. Bayer and GE are also developing diagnostic compounds to be used in tandem with imaging. |
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Msg # | Subject | Author | Recs | Date Posted |
422442 | Re: Study: Avid’s Imaging Dye Can Detect Alzheimer’s From Scan - ICAD 2010 presentation Sunday 11th July 2010 | snugpharma | 6 | 7/12/2010 2:58:03 PM |