Prognosis
Blood Tests for Alzheimer’s Are the Next Big Focus for Japan’s Fujirebio
- Fujirebio plans to file for approval in the US in a year: CEO
- Easier diagnostic tools crucial as a novel drug nears approval
A health worker handles a tray of blood samples in New Delhi, India.
Photographer: T. Narayan/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
A tiny Tokyo-based diagnostics firm that developed the first US-approved spinal fluid test for Alzheimer’s is now doubling down on developing blood tests — an easier method to detect the brain-wasting disease against which a blockbuster therapy is expected soon.
Fujirebio Holding Inc., a unit of H.U. Group Holdings Inc. with a market value of $1.2 billion, is boosting its line-up of reagents used to detect Alzheimer’s biomarkers in a blood test. It aims to file these tests for approval in the US as early as 2023, according to Fujirebio’s chief executive officer Goki Ishikawa.