November 07, 2024 08:00 AM Eastern Time

Veravas Partners with Phanes Biotech to Co-develop a Next-generation Blood-based Tau Pathology Test to Improve Alzheimer's Disease Detection

First-in-class blood-based assay is designed to precisely detect tau pathology and to characterize Alzheimer’s disease progression in symptomatic and presymptomatic patients

AUSTIN, Texas & MALVERN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Veravas, Inc., a leading innovator in clinical diagnostics, today announced a collaboration with Phanes Biotech to co-develop a blood-based Alzheimer’s disease (AD) tau pathology test. Phanes Biotech is an early-stage biotech company focused on treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

“We look forward to working with researchers to complete clinical validation of this test and to commercially launching a laboratory-developed test leveraging this technology.”

The companies are codeveloping a test that leverages Veravas’ proprietary VeraBIND^™ technology with Phanes’ biological intellectual property on tau pathology to detect active disease by studying measurable binding activity occurring in the brain between hyperphosphorylated tau (HPT) and normal tau (nTau), which is a hallmark of AD.

“Scientific discovery and therapeutic development in Alzheimer’s disease are surging, offering clinicians viable new opportunities to intervene early, potentially slow Alzheimer’s disease progression, and improve quality of life for patients. However, innovation in diagnostic testing to detect AD has lagged behind therapeutic development by continuing to rely on expensive and often inaccessible PET imaging tests and first-generation biomarker-based assays capable of detecting indicators of AD, but not detecting or measuring disease pathology,” said Khalid Iqbal, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Phanes Biotech. “The combination of Veravas’ VeraBIND platform with Phanes’ proprietary tau pathology insights offers a compelling and promising vehicle for a diagnostic that provides clinicians with a clear positive or negative result on whether a patient has AD, and makes diagnoses accessible, affordable, and available early in disease progression when treatment is most likely to be effective.”

New diagnostic solutions are desperately needed to identify AD at early stages when intervention is still possible. While nearly seven million Americans have been diagnosed with AD, an estimated 92% of cases of mild cognitive impairment, an early stage of memory and cognitive loss frequently associated with AD, remain undiagnosed.¹

Tau pathology, or the buildup of neurofibrillary tangles composed of tau protein, is considered the best diagnostic and prognostic marker for Alzheimer’s disease, as it is strongly predictive of disease progression and future cognitive decline.² Tau PET imaging is currently the only diagnostic method for detecting tau pathology to definitively diagnose AD. However, high costs and long wait times for tests make tau PET imaging impractical for many patients.³

“Our technology has the potential to eliminate the uncertainties and accessibility hurdles of current Alzheimer’s disease diagnostics for the benefit of clinicians diagnosing and treating AD, their patients, and researchers conducting clinical trials,” said Josh Soldo, Chief Scientific Officer of Veravas. “We look forward to working with researchers to complete clinical validation of this test and to commercially launching a laboratory-developed test leveraging this technology.”

About Veravas, Inc.

Veravas is a leading innovator in clinical diagnostics focused on early-stage detection and prognostic screening for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological conditions. The company’s proprietary VeraBIND^™ technology transforms challenging sample types into measurable biomarkers, enabling earlier disease detection and the development of novel diagnostic tests. Its VeraBIND Tau assay is a first-in-class blood-based test that measures the pathological activity of hyperphosphorylated tau in blood samples of cognitively normal individuals or individuals experiencing cognitive impairment which may be used to aid in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Learn more at Veravas.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Phanes Biotech

Phanes Biotech is an early-stage biotech company focused on developing breakthrough treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration, traumatic brain injury, stroke, Down syndrome-associated Alzheimer’s, and cognitive aging. Phanes takes a unique and differentiated approach to Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, setting it apart from existing therapies and drugs currently in development. The company’s pipeline includes innovative drugs: (1) Neuroregenerative small molecule P021 – This promising therapeutic aims to address Alzheimer’s disease by shifting the balance from neurodegeneration toward neural regeneration. (2) Immunotherapy PB43D – A potent, high-affinity antibody designed to target and bind to tau. It is the only antibody shown to reduce both tau and Aβ pathologies. Through a strategic partnership, Phanes leverages its portfolio of tau-targeting antibodies to develop a groundbreaking, first-in-class blood-based assay. This innovative diagnostic tool aims to detect and measure tau pathology activity in the brain, setting a new standard for diagnosing and tracking the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Learn more at Phanesbiotech.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Footnotes:

2024 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures. Alzheimers Dement. 2024 May;20(5):3708-3821. doi: 10.1002/alz.13809. Epub 2024 Apr 30. PMID: 38689398; PMCID: PMC11095490.
Jack CR, et al. Revised criteria for diagnosis and staging of Alzheimer’s disease: Alzheimer’s
Groot C, et al. Tau Positron Emission Tomography for Predicting Dementia in Individuals With Mild Cognitive Impairment. JAMA Neurol. 2024;81(8):845–856.