The Alere pNGAL test poster.

ALERE pNGAL poster

Jean-Michel Constantin MD, PhD et al. from Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand, France has made a study using the Alere (plasma)NGAL test.

The test is very much the same as always, and it declares that the NGAL test offers great potential in predicting who will develope AKI during ICU admission, and who will not.

A problem for Alere has in the past time been that they have claimed that a cut-off around 150 ng/ml was sufficient. This study says something else.

As we know that “exclusion” is not patentable, and Alere can’t sell their test saying that  LESS than 250 ng/ml means that the patient is NOT developing AKI, but HAS to say that   MORE than ???ng/ml means that the patient will most likely develope AKI, table 1 in the study becomes very interesting.

Category 0-1 is the one we want. And the values here are……: 342 ± 183 ng/mL

[Bonusinfo: Alere markets a  pNGAL POC test. (Plasma, blood) They used to co-own (Abbott holding the uNGAL share) the rights to the CCH patent on the use of NGAL to determine AKI. The CCH patent was revoked at the EPO after a Bioporto initiated opposition case]