Quanterix announces collaboration with health care groups to expand access to AD testing

Quanterix Corp. has announced collaborations with several health systems with the goal of improving and simplifying Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis by expanding access to blood biomarker assays.

According to a release from Quanterix, AdventHealth, Mass General Brigham, Mayo Clinic, South Carolina Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Medical University of South Carolina and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are expected to join the life sciences company in the venture, which aims to provide greater access to patients for high-accuracy, non-invasive AD testing.

“In our pursuit to build the global testing infrastructure for Alzheimer’s disease, Quanterix is pleased to work with several health systems whose combined networks treat millions of patients,” Quanterix CEO Masoud Toloue said in the release. “By working with these leading hospitals, we are taking an important step just as disease modifying therapies become available to patients suffering from this disease.”

Recently developed blood-based biomarker tests offer those with the condition a non-invasive, rapid detection method, providing a counterpoint to traditional detection methods of symptom presentation, brain imaging and acquisition of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers.

Citing data showing that 15 million Americans are predicted to be affected by Alzheimer’s by 2060 Quanterix said in the release that “high accuracy, easily accessible blood testing” is becoming increasingly necessary to facilitate early AD detection and treatment, and developed its Simoa p-Tau 217 assays to provide that high degree of accuracy.

“As we see how well blood measures of p-Tau 217 perform,” Brad Dickerson, MD, of Mass General Neurology and Harvard Medical School, said in the release. “It is exciting to plan for this new tool in our workflow to make an early, accurate diagnosis if a patient is suspected of having Alzheimer’s disease.”