Veravas and Phanes Biotech have announced a partnership for the joint development of a blood-based tau pathology test for detecting Alzheimer's disease.

This diagnostic tool is aimed at detecting active disease by measuring the binding activity of hyperphosphorylated tau (HPT) and normal tau (nTau) in the brain, a key indicator of Alzheimer's.

The new test will utilise Veravas' VeraBIND technology combined with the biological intellectual property of Phanes' on tau pathology.

Veravas chief scientific officer Josh Soldo said: “Our technology has the potential to eliminate the uncertainties and accessibility hurdles of current Alzheimer’s disease diagnostics for the benefit of clinicians diagnosing and treating the illness, their patients, and researchers conducting clinical trials.

“We look forward to working with researchers to complete clinical validation of this test and to commercially launching a laboratory-developed test leveraging this technology.”

Tau pathology, a diagnostic and prognostic marker for Alzheimer's, can predict disease progression and cognitive derangement.

Currently, tau positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is said to be the only method for detecting tau pathology and diagnosing Alzheimer's. However, this method is claimed to be often impractical due to high costs and long wait times.

Phanes Biotech chief scientific officer and co-founder Khalid Iqbal said: “The combination of Veravas’ VeraBIND platform with Phanes’ proprietary tau pathology insights offers a compelling and promising vehicle for a diagnostic that provides clinicians with a clear positive or negative result on whether a patient has Alzheimer's, and makes diagnoses accessible, affordable, and available early in disease progression when treatment is most likely to be effective.”

In March 2020, Veravas signed a mutually beneficial agreement with MIP Diagnostics for the development, licence and supply of a MIP specific to Veravas’ sample preparation technology.