SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Banyan announced today that it will provide Abbott, a global healthcare leader, a license for its traumatic brain injury (TBI) blood biomarkers – Ubiquitin Carboxy-terminal Hydrolase-L1 (UCH-L1) and Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP) – for use on Abbott's core laboratory instruments. With this license, Abbott continues its development of a TBI assessment blood test for the point-of-care and its core laboratory instruments. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
"We look forward to working with Abbott to bring this objective diagnostic test to physicians who see patients who are suspected of suffering a traumatic brain injury or a concussion as it is normally called,” said Henry L. Nordhoff, Chairman and CEO of Banyan Biomarkers. “This non-exclusive license to one of the world’s leading diagnostic companies supports our objective to make this test widely available both here in the United States and worldwide.”
TBIs have become a global public health concern. More than 4.8 million people in the U.S. visit the emergency room each year to be evaluated for a suspected TBI, and an estimated 10 million people globally are affected annually by brain injuries.1-2 According to the World Health Organization, TBI could surpass many diseases as the major cause of death and disability by 2020.2 While certain groups of people may be at a higher risk for TBI, the vast majority of brain injuries occur to everyday people during a car accident or fall.
While there's been a significant focus on the prevention of TBIs, there is a growing need to develop new technologies that would help physicians detect TBIs. Today, detecting concussions is often difficult because the physical damage may not be obvious, and not all brain injuries are visible on CT scans or other tests used as part of today's standard of care. Failure to detect TBIs could have implications for a patient's treatment and recovery.
Blood tests are relied on by healthcare providers to detect a variety of conditions due to their objectivity and speed. Developing blood tests that identify biomarkers released from the brain when injured, such as GFAP and UCH-L1, could help healthcare providers have a fuller picture of a patient's health when they are presenting in the emergency room with a suspected brain injury.
“When a physician sees someone in the emergency room with a suspected brain injury, it is critical that we have objective measurements and tests available," said Beth McQuiston, M.D., R.D., board-certified neurologist and medical director, Diagnostics, Abbott. "Using novel biomarkers like these will help us develop both point-of-care and core laboratory blood tests for clinicians to assess brain injuries."
About Banyan Biomarkers
Banyan Biomarkers, Inc. has developed the first blood test, Banyan BTI™, that can be used to objectively aid in the evaluation of patients with suspected traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as concussions. Banyan BTI consists of two test kits (Banyan UCH-L1® Kit and Banyan GFAP® Kit) that measure two specific protein biomarkers that rapidly appear in the blood after a brain injury. To learn more about the Company and Banyan BTI, visit www.banyanbio.com.
Banyan Biomarkers, Banyan, Brain Trauma Indicator, BTI, Banyan UCH-L1, Banyan GFAP, and the brain and tree logos are the trademarks and copyrights of Banyan Biomarkers, Inc.
Alinity is a registered trademark of the Abbott group of companies in various jurisdictions.
| References: | ||
| 1. | FK et al. J Head Trauma Rehabil. 2016; Nov/Dec;31(6):379-387. | |
| 2. | Hyder, AA et al. NeuroRehabilitation. 2007;22(5):341-53. | |
