AMRA and BioTelemetry Research Raise the Standard for Medical Imaging in NASH/NAFLD Clinical Trials
October 19 2017 - 12:04PM
Business Wire
First to Market Alliance Increases Precision
and Specificity while Reducing Cost
AMRA, the international leader in body composition analysis, and
BioTelemetry Research (“BTR”), a leading global imaging and cardiac
core lab, announced today the formation of an exclusive alliance
for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic
steatohepatitis (NASH) clinical trials. This first-to-market
partnership will advance imaging science and benefit clinical trial
sponsors in several musculoskeletal and metabolic therapeutic
areas.
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In clinical studies, muscle and fat fractions have traditionally
been measured by scanning individual organs such as the liver, or
particular body regions such as the abdomen. Commonly, researchers
would prefer to scan the entire body in order to learn exactly
where study participants are losing or gaining muscle or fat mass.
However, until now they have been constrained by prohibitive costs
and insufficiently precise outcomes.
AMRA’s body composition analysis service has introduced a new
and better paradigm where rapid, six-minute whole body MRI scans
are transformed into precise, three dimensional-volumetric fat and
muscle measurements. This standardized, automated method eliminates
reader variability and reduces processing costs. With those
advancements, BioTelemetry Research is able to provide clinical
trial sponsors with new, high-value information to about their drug
compounds’ efficacy and mechanisms of action, including the
identification of previously undetectable changes within and beyond
the liver.
Tommy Johansson, Chief Executive Officer of AMRA, commented,
“BioTelemetry Research is the ideal core lab to help us deliver
this enhanced value to clinical trial sponsors. They bring unique
expertise managing the protocol complexity, site training intensity
and equipment variability that are common to non-standard-of-care
MRI trials.” He continued, “BioTelemetry was a leading pioneer in
proton density fat fraction (PDFF) analysis, and have analysed more
liver fat cases, from more sites, in more regions than any other
group in industry. I am excited to see where our partnership will
take us.”
BioTelemetry Research President and General Manager, Scott
Satin, added, “By employing AMRA’s automated analysis, we are now
able to efficiently provide more actionable data to our
pharmaceutical partners. Ordinarily, a whole body MRI scan takes 10
to 15 minutes and produces hundreds of images. Prior to AMRA, such
analyses were infeasible in clinical trials largely because of the
time needed to label fat and muscle tissues within every image.
With those challenges eliminated, we can now help sponsors assess
the effects of their treatments more quickly and completely.”
Through collaboration with leading universities such as the
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of
Westminster, London, AMRA’s technique has been proven to enable
market-leading accuracy and precision when measuring fat depots and
muscle volumes, as well as the fat infiltration of muscles and in
organs. BioTelemetry has the scientific expertise and operational
experience to apply this technique successfully in global clinical
trials. Together, the alliance is committed to accelerate the
prevention and treatment of diseases such as NAFLD and obesity.
-ENDS-
About AMRA AMRA is the first
in the world to transform images from a rapid, 6-minute whole body
MRI scan into precise, 3D-volumetric fat and muscle measurements.
AMRA’s cloud-based analysis service offers precise, automated
insights that have far-reaching implications for the pharmaceutical
industry, academic R&D and, soon, clinical practice. AMRA was
founded in 2010 as a spin-off of the Center for Medical Image
Science and Visualization (CMIV), the Department of Biomedical
Engineering (IMT) and the Department of Medicine and Health (IMH)
at Link�ping University, Sweden. For more information, visit
www.amra.se.
About BioTelemetry
BioTelemetry Research is the clinical research division of
BioTelemetry, Inc., (NASDAQ: BEAT) the leading wireless medical
technology company focused on the delivery of health information to
improve quality of life and reduce cost of care. The Company
currently provides cardiac monitoring services, original equipment
manufacturing with a primary focus on cardiac monitoring devices
and centralized imaging and cardiac core laboratory
services. More information can be found at
www.gobio.com/research.
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Advanced MR Analytics ABChelsea RangerSVP Business
Developmentchelsea.ranger@amra.seorBioTelemetry, Inc.Heather
C. GetzInvestor
Relations800-908-7103InvestorRelations@biotelinc.com