NEW YORK – UK-based Cytox said on Wednesday that it has partnered with Infinity BiologiX to launch a new liquid biopsy-based test for Alzheimer's disease risk in the US using Cytox's GenoScore platform.
Piscataway, New Jersey-based IBX will offer the laboratory-developed test out of its CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited lab on Cytox's GenoScore platform, according to a Cytox spokesperson.
Cytox's GenoScore technology predicts the risk of cognitive decline due to Alzheimer's disease using a patient's saliva or blood sample. The technology — which runs on the Thermo Fisher Scientific GeneTitan instrument — analyzes a patient's genes for more than 100,000 SNPs linked to Alzheimer's disease, generating a patient-specific polygenic risk score.
The firms believe that physicians can use the new test to assess patients before symptoms appear and prior to cerebrospinal fluid testing and expensive scanning techniques.
"We see this new test as a powerful tool to enable physicians to make immediate decisions about their patients’ risk of cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease, and guide them towards effective lifestyle and therapeutic interventions that can have a significant impact on delaying the onset of disease symptoms and cognitive decline," Richard Pither, CEO of Cytox, said in a statement.
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
"We see this agreement for the sale and distribution of the GenoScore test as a critical collaboration in line with our mission to understand the genetic causes of common, complex diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and to discover diagnoses, treatments, and support the development of new, effective therapeutic interventions for these diseases," Robin Grimwood, CEO of IBX, added.
The firms said they expect to offer the assay later this year.
Cytox received a CE mark for its GeneScore-Lab assay in February.