Almac to Perform the Analytic Phase of AclarusDx™ for Exonhit

Almac’s Diagnostics business unit has announced that it will be the central service lab to perform the analytic phase and deliver to the clinicians the result of Exonhit AclarusDx™ diagnostic test.

Exonhit AclarusDx™ is a micro-array-based test intended to aid in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by detecting biomarkers specific for AD in peripheral blood.

The test was CE marked in March 2011 and has now been introduced for clinical diagnostic use in France. The test will be performed by Almac from its ISO17025 accredited laboratory. Almac will deliver the AclarusDx™ result to the clinicians.

Almac recently announced the opening of its CLIA registered Clinical Testing laboratory from which it is currently delivering the Therascreen® K-RAS Mutation Test. AclarusDx™ will be the second commercial clinical test that will be managed by Almac.

In addition to standard molecular tests Almac will deliver a range of novel, validated biomarker assays from its Clinical Testing Laboratory to facilitate the stratification and enrichment of prospective clinical trials.

Professor Paul Harkin, President and Managing Director of Almac’s Diagnostics business said: “The partnership with Exonhit is an excellent arrangement for both companies. Exonhit will focus on the sales and marketing of AclarusDx while we will focus on the delivery of the diagnostic in our ISO17025 certified laboratory.”

Loïc Maurel, M.D., Chairman of the Management Board at Exonhit said: “We chose Almac Diagnostics as our reference lab to perform the analytic phase of AclarusDx™ due to its strong expertise in molecular biology and its practice of the Affymetrix platform. We also view the location of Almac Diagnostics in Northern Ireland as an asset for the upcoming roll-out of AclarusDx™ in Europe.”