Siemens Healthineers has tapped the Alzheimer’s disease blood test developer ALZpath for an in vitro diagnostic to potentially identify the condition from other neurodegenerative disorders and dementias—joining a race alongside other companies exploring different biomarkers as new therapies come to the fore.
ALZpath licensed out its phosphorylated tau-217 antibody, which Siemens Healthineers plans to incorporate in the testing menu of its Atellica immunoassay platforms.
The imaging giant, of course, already maintains programs for PET brain scans to quantify the buildup of tau proteins and amyloid plaques, but the easier accessibility of blood-based testing aims to reach a greater portion of the population.
“The sooner we detect degenerative diseases, the more time clinicians, patients, and families have to prepare—and the more impactful disease-modifying therapies can be,” Dirk Heckel, Ph.D., Siemens Healthineers’ chief technology officer and head of diagnostics R&D, said in a statement.
According to ALZpath, its proprietary antibody has performed comparably to PET imaging as well as tests of difficult-to-collect cerebrospinal fluid in early studies. By teaming up with Siemens Healthineers, the California-based test developer hopes to access an installed base of analyzers spanning a variety of laboratory sizes.
The company has said that its pTau-217 biomarker has been employed by testmakers such as Beckman Coulter and Roche and included in clinical research assays developed by Alamar Biosciences, Bio-Techne, Quanterix and Neurocode.
Roche, meanwhile, has also been working on a separate test targeting a different version of tau—one phosphorylated at the protein’s 181 mark, instead of further down the amino acid chain at site 217.
This year, Roche obtained regulatory green lights in both Europe and the U.S. for its pTau-181 test on its Elecsys immunoassay system—designed for primary care settings and patients age 55 and older—with Labcorp quickly signing up to carry the diagnostic stateside.
Meanwhile, drugmakers such as Biogen and Eli Lilly have called for advancements in Alzheimer’s diagnostics as they aim to deliver potential blockbuster drugs to the field. Lilly recently pointed to a study of providers in Europe showing that biomarker tests remain underutilized, as it works to roll out its recently approved Kisunla therapy to the continent.