Recently, BG Medicine (BGMD) entered in a research collaboration agreement with leading medical devices player, Boston Scientific Corporation (BSX). The two companies will study the role of galectin-3 to help screening of patients who would derive the maximum benefit from the cardiac-resynchronization therapy (CRT) and would use patient data from the MADIT-CRT trial.

CRT is a treatment for heart failure that uses an implantable device to improve the pumping of the heart. During the third quarter of 2009, results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine from the MADIT-CRT clinical trial, the world’s largest randomized CRT-D study of New York Heart Association (NYHA) class I and II patients, sponsored by Boston Scientific. About 1,800 patients across 110 centers were enrolled. It was observed that the CRT-D therapy significantly reduces the relative risk of death or heart failure when compared to traditional ICD therapy.

Earlier, in November 2010, BG Medicine received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the manual version of its galectin-3 test, which along with clinical measures would be used to study patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure. Following this approval, the company announced collaboration with Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LH) under which the latter would provide galectin-3 testing services.

While the manual version of the test has been approved, the automated version of the galectin-3 test is under development by many of BG Medical’s partners including Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and Siemens among others. It is expected that submission for FDA clearance of the automated versions of the test will begin in the fourth quarter of 2011.

BG Medical is working with several companies to make its galectin-3 test a significant one in the treatment of heart failure patients. Potential in this field is enormous as heart failure may often lead to further serious complications and often death. As per estimates of the American Heart Association, heart failure affects 5.8 million Americans with 670,000 new diagnoses each year.

 
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