Liver disease is one of the leading causes of human mortality, resulting in almost 2 million deaths per year globally – many of which could be prevented by early detection.
Liver biopsy is currently the ‘gold standard’ for diagnosis, but it is invasive, painful, expensive, and often inaccurate – and alternatives are limited. Biomarker panels are available for diagnosing late-stage liver disease (e.g. cirrhosis) but they are not effective for early diagnosis. Modern imaging technologies can also identify liver fibrosis but don’t provide an understanding of the cause.
There is therefore an urgent need for new serological biomarkers which can accurately detect liver disease throughout its progression.
Abcodia has exclusive access to a longitudinal serum biobank derived from 202,000 healthy female volunteers who participated in the ten-year UKCTOCS trial – and is actively seeking partners in industry and academia to utilise this unparalleled resource to discover, validate and commercialise novel biomarkers that can detect disease earlier and stratify patient populations to support the clinical development of new therapeutics to treat liver disease.
Dr Simon Goldman, Business Development Executive at Abcodia, said: “Many of the women in the UKCTOCS trial, sadly, developed the kinds of diseases you would expect in such a cohort over this long time period, including hundreds of cases of both early and late-stage liver disease, and a large at-risk population who showed abnormal results on liver function or imaging tests.”
Abcodia can also provide its partners with demographic and clinical data associated with the serum samples. “For example,” added Dr Goldman, “obesity was common among this sub-group of women – almost half of the volunteers who had fatty liver disease were obese, as were around 40% of those with fibrosis or cirrhosis.”
Abcodia’s philosophy is that the best outcomes are gained through collaboration, with a flexible approach that enables partners to access this unique serum biobank that can enormously expedite the time and cost of biomarker and diagnostic validation, and to substantially enhance the accuracy of diagnosis for liver disease.
For further information, please contact info@abcodia.com and see http://www.abcodia.com/docs/Abcodia_Liver_Disease.pdf
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