Waltham, Mass., BG Medicine, a life sciences company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel diagnostics, today announced the publication* of the biomarker discovery study yielding its novel diagnostic candidate for the detection of ruptured plaque, the underlying condition for the majority of heart attacks and stroke.

The study, published in this month’s edition of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, was conducted by the Department of Pathology, Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM) in The Netherlands and reports on the discovery of a two analyte marker set, E1 and E12, which were able to discriminate between patients with peripheral ruptured atherosclerotic lesions and patients with peripheral stable plaque with 100% specificity and 76% sensitivity.

The biomarker set was further tested on a validation series of patients with peripheral atherosclerotic lesions, coronary artery disease and healthy controls.  Ninety three percent (93%) of patients with an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) tested positive for our biomarkers, whereas stable angina patients tested negative.  Furthermore, 90% of AMI patients who initially tested negative for troponin T upon hospital admission, tested positive for the biomarkers.  Troponin T is routinely used to diagnose a heart attack.

“These two biomarkers may allow for the development of a blood test which will be used to identify patients with ruptured peripheral atherosclerotic lesions and perhaps enable earlier detection of acute myocardial infarction where current tests often fail,”

said Professor Mat Daemen, one of the founders of ACS Biomarker and Scientific Director of CARIM.

“Longitudinal studies are needed to determine the diagnostic and predictive value of the biomarker set for the identification of patients experiencing cardiovascular events or those at high risk for future events.”

BG Medicine holds the exclusive world-wide license to the biomarker discovery reported in the article. 

“This two-marker biomarker set may provide an important new acute care diagnostic for use in the early and accurate diagnosis of patients with acute cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions,”

said Pieter Muntendam, MD, President and CEO of BG Medicine.

“It is an excellent complement to our discovery and validation efforts in the field of detection of vulnerable plaques prior to their rupture, and combined, illustrate our commitment to fundamentally change the way atherosclerotic vascular disease is recognized and managed – moving from late detection based on signs and symptoms to early detection before and during an event – based on a simple blood test.” 

To download an abstract of the article and for more information, please visit the Company’s website at www.bg-medicine.com or by visiting the Journal of Clinical Investigation at www.jci.org or (http://www.jci.org/articles/view/32767).

*Citation of the Publication: Cleutjens K., et al. Noninvasive diagnosis of ruptured peripheral atherosclerotic lesions and myocardial infarction by antibody profiling. J. Clin. Invest.118: 2979–2985 (2008).

About BG Medicine

BG Medicine (BGM) is developing molecular diagnostic tests based on biomarkers that are intended to provide information to physicians that will improve patient treatment decisions. BGM’s molecular diagnostic tests are designed to predict a patient’s response to a drug therapy, determine the potential toxicity of therapeutic agents to patients, identify patients who have or are likely to develop a specific disease, predict a patient’s prognosis once a disease has been diagnosed and monitor a patient’s disease progression or drug response.  BGM’s patented technology platform is the discovery engine that enables to identify new biomarkers by integrating and automating the measurement, analysis, characterization and interpretation of proteins and small non-protein biological molecules, or metabolites, collected from bodily fluids.  BGM created a broad pipeline of product candidates that focus on cardiovascular disease, cancer and central nervous system disorders.  The company has ongoing joint initiatives with major pharmaceutical companies including Merck, AstraZeneca, Abbott and Takeda, other healthcare organizations including Humana and Philips and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

For more information please visit the website (www.bg-medicine.com)