GE Healthcare reports positive data from imaging agent trial

GE Healthcare has published phase III trial data that demonstrates the promising performance of a new PET amyloid imaging agent it is developing.

Pooled results from brain autopsy and biopsy studies using [18F]flutemetamol showed a strong concordance between images produced using the agent and Alzheimer's disease-associated beta amyloid brain pathology.

Importantly, the compound was shown to be effective in accurately detecting beta amyloid among living patients, making it a potentially vital diagnosis tool.

The company will file for US and EU regulatory approval of the agent later this year.

Jonathan Allis, general manager for PET at GE Healthcare Medical Diagnostics, said: "We know that Alzheimer's disease-related biomarkers such as beta amyloid may appear decades before clinical symptoms are observed, and the results from these studies demonstrate the potential of [18F]flutemetamol to detect such biomarkers."

Last week, the company launched KUBio, a new off-the-shelf modular factory design for biopharmaceutical companies.