Merck, GE Healthcare Announce Collaboration on Use of Imaging Biomarkers for Investigational BACE Inhibitor Program

Merck

, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and GE Healthcare today announced a clinical study collaboration, license and supply agreement for use of [^18F]Flutemetamol, an investigational positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agent, to support Merck's development of MK-8931, a novel oral beta amyloid precursor protein site cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor and Merck's lead investigational candidate for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Accumulation of beta amyloid in the brain is a pathological characteristic related to Alzheimer's disease. Currently, AD is diagnosed by clinical examination (i.e., medical history, physical, neurological, psychiatric and neuropsychological exams, laboratory tests and Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI] or Computed Tomography [CT] scan). An AD diagnosis can only be confirmed through histopathological identification of characteristic features, including beta amyloid plaques, in post-mortem brain samples.