Carina Schmidt, CEO of Athera, said: “We are very excited about the opportunities these agreements present to Athera. They will allow us to reach a large number of customers in Germany and UK and will support further development of the broader clinical utility of our new cardiovascular disease (CVD) biomarker. We are looking forward to work with the experienced team in Asbach Medical Products and Oxford Biosystems.”
According to Athera, high levels of IgM antibodies against phosphorylcholine (anti-PC) has been shown to predict less atherosclerosis development in hypertensive patients after a five-year follow up. However, in 2008 data indicating that low anti-PC levels predict an increased risk of CVD were presented. One study included myocardial infarction patients and suggested that anti-PC measurements could be used to predict the likelihood of secondary CVD events up to six months after an initial event.
This has since been followed up with another study involving over 1000 ACS patients. The product, CVDefine, introduced in 2008 provides an easy-to-use ELISA kit (CE-marked) for quantitative analysis of anti-PC in human blood, the company said.