Bloomberg Businessweek says Avid likely to Beat GE, Bayer to Market
Posted by | July 12, 2010
On the eve of the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD), Bloomberg Businessweek’s Elizabeth Lopatto and Kanoko Matsuyama reported that Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Inc., a Safeguard Scientifics partner company, ” … will likely beat General Electric Co. and Bayer AG to the market with the first imaging test to pinpoint Alzheimer’s early on in the disease.”
That’s high praise from one of the world’s most respected business publications.
“Avid has completed the final tests needed for U.S. approval [of its imaging agent to identify proteins in the brain, called beta amyloid, that are markers for Alzheimer’s], and aims to submit its results this year.”
Both GE and Bayer have their own imaging agents in earlier testing stages and are certainly large and formidable competitors.
But as the authors point out, Avid has strong partners of its own. The Company has ties to the medical unit of Siemens AG of Munich, Germany, which makes the dye for Avid. Chief Executive Officer Daniel M. Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D. has said the company will continue to rely on strong partners and backers and “as a growing biotech company, [will] always [have a] need for financing. We are always thinking about where our next dollar is going to come from.”
The U.S. National Institutes of Health estimates as many as 5.1 million Americans have this debilitating disease for which there is no cure. Harry Glorikian of Scientia Advisors, an industry consulting firm, believes the market for imaging agents could consequently reach $3 billion.
While those are market characteristics that are bound to invite competition, they are also characteristics that create tremendous opportunity. Here’s the complete article.
