Under the agreement, Siemens will be responsible for the development of the test in accordance with certain plans and milestones, and Siemens and BG Medicine will collaborate in support of development of the test and regulatory filings.
The agreement with Siemens follows BG Medicine‘s execution of similar agreements in 2009 and 2010 for the development and commercialization of automated galectin-3 assays with other diagnostic laboratory instrument manufacturers, including Abbott, Alere (formerly Inverness Medical), and bioMerieux.
The automated Siemens galectin-3 assay will offer laboratories a convenient way to measure galectin-3 in plasma or serum.
The BG Medicine manual galectin-3 assay was recently cleared by the FDA as an aid in assessing the prognosis of patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure.
BG Medicine president and CEO Pieter Muntendam said that this partnership with Siemens will allow the many hospitals around the world that rely on Siemens instruments for their laboratory operations to meet the demand for galectin-3 testing using existing systems and workflow.
