Congestive heart failure, or CHF, a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to the rest of the body, affects an estimated 5 million people in the United States and we believe a similar number in Europe. CHF may result from a variety of causes, including narrowing of the coronary arteries, a previous heart attack, chronic high blood pressure, or defects of the heart valves or muscle itself. Patients typically present with rather non-specific symptoms such as swollen legs or ankles, shortness of breath, or weight gain.
Heart failure is a very serious condition with on average a 50% 5-year mortality rate. This is much worse than most cancers.
Although heart failure has long be known to be a very heterogeneous condition, until now physicians characterize heart failure on the basis of signs and symptoms and not on the basis of the underlying disease process.
Improvement in heart failure management and outcomes requires segmentation of the population based on underlying disease process. BG Medicine has pursued this goal and has developed an assay for Galectin-3 a protein that plays an important role in one of the most common and serious disease processes in heart failure called remodeling. For more information about Galectin-3 and its role in cardiac disease visit www.galectin-3.com.
We expect to launch an optimized assay for Galectin-3 measurements in plasma or serum later in 2009 subject to FDA clearance and obtaining the European CE Mark.
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