Press Release

Dec 1, 2016
Cytox presentations on studies with breakthrough genetic biomarker research assay for Alzheimer’s disease risk assessment at CTAD 2016

Novel SNP profiling approach for AD risk stratification to be highlighted in San Diego

Oxford, UK. Cytox Ltd, an innovative developer of assays for risk assessment and prediction of dementia, has announced that it will be presenting two posters at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease Conference, CTAD 2016, San Diego, USA, December 8-10th, discussing SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) profiling and the use of polygenic risk score algorithms for stratification of early subjects for risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Following on from the launch of Cytox’s breakthrough research use variaTECT™ genetic biomarker test for assessing AD risk, co-developed and marketed by Affymetrix as the Axiom® Dementia Research Array, and interpretive SNPfitR™ software, the posters will present data from clinical research validation studies by Cytox and its global academic research partners, at two sessions at the conference.

Dr Richard Pither, CEO of Cytox, commented “There is an ever-increasing need by pharmaceutical companies for earlier stage subjects for inclusion in AD clinical trials. The variaTECT array, together with SNPfitR software, can be used to enrich amyloid-positive cohorts and so reduce screening failure rates in early symptomatic (MCI) and pre-symptomatic subject groups.  Easy to administer, the assay is currently the most comprehensive genotyping research panel available for the detection of AD informative SNPs. We have partnered with leading researchers worldwide to analyse and test this array on highly characterised patient populations. Our ongoing studies show the assay has an accuracy of greater than 80%, with high positive and negative predictive values for the amyloid status of test subjects.”

The poster, P1-32, ‘Stratification of MCI And Cognitively Normal Individuals Using Polygenic Scoring: Evaluation of A Novel SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) Array in Risk Assessment’, will be displayed on Thursday, December 8th, as part of Poster Session 1, Theme 4: Clinical Trials: biomarkers including plasma. The authors are Dr Maryam Shoai, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; Dr  Richard Pither, Cytox Ltd, UK, Oxford, United Kingdom; Lakshmi Radhakrishnan MSc and Dr Geoff Scopes,  Affymetrix (Thermo Fisher Scientific) UK and USA; Dr Valentina Escott-Price, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Dr Simon M Laws, Edith Cowan University, and Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Mental Health, Perth, Australia; Julie Davis, MSc, Cytox Ltd, UK, Oxford, United Kingdom; Professor Harald Hampel, AXA Research Fund & UPMC Chair, Paris, France; Professor Rik Vandenberghe and Isabelle Cleynen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Dr Claire Bloor, Affymetrix (Thermo Fisher Scientific) UK and USA; Dr Greg Davidson Ledcourt Associates, United Kingdom; and Professor John Hardy, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom.  

Poster, P2-1, ‘A Novel SNP Genotyping Array for Alzheimer’s Disease Detection at The Preclinical State’, is part of the Poster Session 2, Theme 2: Clinical Trials results on Friday, December 9th. The authors are Professor Harald Hampel, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France and AXA Research Fund and UPMC Chair, Paris, France; Dr Maryam Shoai, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, MSc, Affymetrix UK and USA; Dr Richard Pither, Cytox Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom; Dr Geoff Scopes, Affymetrix UK and USA; Dr Marie-Claude Potier, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France; Dr Valentina Escott-Price, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Dr Simon M Laws, Edith Cowan University, and Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Mental Health, Perth, Australia; Dr Simone Lista, AXA Research Fund and UPMC, Paris and IHU-A-ICM – Paris Institute of Translational Neurosciences, Paris, France; Julie Davis, MSc Cytox Ltd, UK, Oxford, United Kingdom; Dr Claire Bloor, Affymetrix UK and USA; Professor Bruno Dubois, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France; Professor John Hardy, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom. The study is supported by the IHU-A-ICM, the Memento cohort, the Fondation Plan-Alzheimer, Pfizer and Amyvid/Lilly.

More information about the event can be found on the CTAD Conference website www.ctad-alzheimer.com/.