Dementia is one the most common cognitive disorders, although it includes various forms. Among the different dementia types, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent (up to 75% of all cases) and progressively leads to complete brain dysfunction and degeneration, imposing social, psychological, and financial burden on patients afflicted by AD. AD neuropathology begins decades before the onset of observable symptoms. Initiating interventions after symptom onset may be too late to have a meaningful impact on disease course. Currently, imaging methods like Positron Emission Tomography (PET) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are used to detect brain changes associated with early-moderate and advanced signs of cognitive decline. Early assessment of AD can be also detected from β-amyloid in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (lumbar puncture) with methods in development for blood/plasma tests. However, these solutions present some unresolved issues for broad market deployment. To overcome this, Cytox developed a ground-breaking biomarker platform to stratify contemporaneously AD risk in 96 individuals by using a fast, accurate, reliable and cost-effective way to analyse specific genetic information and generate a polygenic risk score of the likelihood of an individual being at risk of developing AD. The platform is composed of the variaTECT genomic array and the SNPfitR interpretive software. During the phase 2 innovation project, Cytox will focus on the optimisation and validation the SNPfitR interpretive software performance. The clinical validation study will be used to validate the technology and for the approval to get the CE marking.
