VIZAMYL Will Guide Further Clinical Research In Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. The AD and dementia continue to be a major burden on healthcare and society. Alzheimer’s is not just a disease of old age. Up to 5 percent of people with the disease have early onset Alzheimer’s which often appears at the age of 40s or 50s.

GE Healthcare announced recently that VIZAMYL™ (flutemetamol (18F) solution for injection) has received marketing authorisation from the European Commission as a radiopharmaceutical medicinal product indicated for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging of beta amyloid neuritic plaque density in the brains of adult patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for AD and other causes of cognitive impairment. VIZAMYL™ is the only PET imaging tracer for detection of amyloid approved in Europe for visual interpretation of color images

“This approval will provide physicians in the EU with an important tool that may help them better assess specific patients who are being evaluated for AD” said Kieran Murphy, President and CEO, Life Sciences, GE Healthcare. 

“Because Alzheimer’s disease and dementia continue to be a major burden on healthcare and society, it is equally important that VIZAMYL will help support and guide further clinical research that is vital in order to develop disease modifying agents” said Professor Philip Scheltens, Professor of Cognitive Neurology and Director of the Alzheimer Center at the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam.