DiaGenic's blood test confirms Alzheimer's with 87% accuracy

By Elaine Rigoli

Tampa, Fla., July 18 - DiaGenic ASA said Tuesday that new scientific data based on gene-expression analysis confirms that the development of a simple blood-based test for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is a realistic possibility soon, thereby enabling earlier therapeutic intervention.

DiaGenic ASA and its collaborative partner, IMGM Laboratories in Munich, Germany, used Applied Biosystems' gene-expression technology in a research study to identify a gene-expression signature characteristic for Alzheimer's in easily collectable peripheral blood samples.

This rigorous validation gave an accuracy of 87%, according to a news release.

The company said this study shows clearly that the gene expression signature identified by DiaGenic can distinguish individuals with Alzheimer's from both healthy elderly and younger individuals, and also from those with another neurodegenerative disorder, Parkinson disease.

In this extensive study, a set of 330 blood samples, including 125 from patients recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's, was used to generate a gene-expression model for the disease and an independent test set was then used to validate the model.

The company said it will have the first product prototype ready for clinical trials by the end of this year.

There are currently no direct tests that confirm Alzheimer's disease in a living person, with diagnosis usually relying on subjective means, such as memory tests, officials noted.

DiaGenic is a biotechnology company based in Oslo, Norway.

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