Yorkshire healthcare company leads the way with pancreatitis test for dogs

HEALTHCARE business Avacta today announced it has launched a new test for pancreatitis in dogs in what it said was an “exciting development” for the group as it continues to push into new markets.

The AIM-listed Wetherby-based company, which provides innovative diagnostic tools, consumables and reagents aimed at reducing the cost of human and animal healthcare, says pancreatitis is a very common inflammatory disorder of the pancreas in dogs of which there are 83 million in the US and 8.5 million in the UK.

The acute form of the disease occurs in around 1.5% of dogs whilst the prevalence of the chronic form is reported to be as high as 30% suggesting a large market for a pancreatitis diagnostic test.

Avacta’s new pancreatitis test uses the same approach as its unique canine lymphoma blood test in which an algorithm is used to combine the results of two common blood tests with other symptoms and other information about the dog such as age and breed.

Currently there is only one other proprietary test for pancreatitis in the market.

Avacta said its internal validation of the new pancreatitis test performance shows that is has better sensitivity, specificity and predictive capability than the established test when tested on confirmed pancreatitis cases clinically diagnosed by vets at a large referral centre in the UK using other techniques such as ultrasound.

Avacta will commercialise the test by providing “pay per click” access to the diagnostic algorithm which will allow veterinary laboratories world wide to get an accurate and immediate diagnosis for pancreatitis by submitting the results of two blood tests commonly run in house along with other patient information on-line. In due course the blood tests themselves will also be offered on the Sensipod in-clinic analyser allowing vets to access the same on-line pancreatitis diagnostic.

Alastair Smith, chief executive of Avacta, said: “This is an exciting development for the group and addresses one of our key strategic objectives for the Animal Health Division of broadening its product portfolio outside of its historical focus on animal allergies and entering new markets that have not been accessible with allergy tests. The performance of our pancreatitis test is excellent and, with the added benefit to the customer of immediate diagnosis from test results run in their own laboratory rather than having to send samples away, we believe our test will be highly competitive in a large market.”

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