NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – BG Medicine said today that it has amended its agreement with Abbott Laboratories for licensing and distributing its galectin-3 test.
The amendment changes product fees Abbott pays to BG Medicine for galectin-3 tests it sells to reference laboratories. In addition, Abbott was to make a payment of $500,000 to BG Medicine by November 30 and will make another $500,000 payment by June 30, 2016, provided certain commercial milestones are met.
BG said it expects that the modified agreement will help expedite the transition of its galectin-3 test from manual to automated platforms. Currently, the company derives the bulk of its revenues from manual testing, but it aims to move to automated testing.
Moving galectin-3 testing to an automated platform has long been a key part of BG Medicine’s commercial strategy. The company expects that such a move would increase uptake of the test by improving throughput and turnaround time and reducing the amount of labor involved in running it.
In addition to Abbott, the company has partnered with Alere, Siemens, and BioMérieux on developing automated versions of the test.
The amendments to the Abbott agreement cover only sales of the galectin-3 test to reference labs. Product fees will remain the same for sales to other customer segments.