Steve West, MDS Nordion

Ottawa-based MDS Nordion is partnering with Philadelphia-based Avid Radiopharmaceuticals Inc. to help Avid develop its Alzheimer's disease detection and monitoring tools.

MDS Nordion, which makes medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals for use in molecular medicine, will be using its proprietary single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) technology to test Avid's compounds.

"This partnership with Avid provides an exciting opportunity to develop a new molecular imaging agent that can assist researchers to identify a more effective therapy for patients with this debilitating disease," said MDS Nordion president Steve West. "MDS Nordion is using its proprietary technologies to work to develop these important compounds with our pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical partners."

Avid's products are focused on imaging Alzheimer's disease pathology, and its lead product candidates are being developed to identify amyloid protein plaques, which are thought to accumulate in the brain before the onset of clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's. The company aims to enable the earlier diagnosis of the disease and allow researchers to determine the best therapeutic drugs for the prevention or reversal of amyloid plaque buildup in the brain.

Under the terms of the agreement, MDS Nordion will study Avid's proprietrary compounds for use in proof-of-concept clinical trials for SPECT imaging of Alzheimer's disease.