FDA Approves Third Amyloid PET Tracer for Alzheimer's

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a third agent for imaging β-amyloid in the setting of Alzheimer's disease (AD), florbetaben F18 injection (Neuraceq, Piramal Imaging).

Florbetaben is indicated for positron emission tomography (PET) of the brain to estimate β-amyloid neuritic plaque density in adults with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for AD and other causes of cognitive decline. It was recently also approved in Europe.

Two other PET imaging tracers, florbetapir (Amyvid, Eli Lilly and Company) and flutemetamol (Vizamyl, GE Healthcare), were approved previously by the FDA in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Plasma biomarkers could predict Alzheimer's before it starts

A simple blood test has the potential to predict whether a healthy person will develop symptoms of dementia within two or three years. If larger studies uphold the results, the test could fill a major gap in strategies to combat brain degeneration, which is thought to show symptoms only at a stage when it too late to treat effectively.