NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - ExonHit said yesterday that it has developed a prototype for a blood-based diagnostic to identify patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
The company said the test is based on hybridizing RNA isolated from blood on an Affymetrix microarray, and it can distinguish patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease from those suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and depression.
The test is designed to identify Alzheimer’s sufferers, but the company said it is assessing the feasibility of using it to identify patients suffering from mild cognitive impairment who are at risk to develop Alzheimer-type dementia.
ExonHit’s executive VP for research, Laurent Bracco, said the company is “confident that the test will also be able to screen out patients suffering from other dementias such as frontal lobe dementias, Lewy body dementias, or vascular dementias.”
ExonHit said it expects it will have the test certified and ready to market to pharmaceutical companies as early as 2009.