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Banyan Biomarkers, Inc. Licenses Protein Markers to Help Evaluate Traumatic Brain InjuryALACHUA, Fla. & SAN DIEGO --(Business Wire)-- Today Banyan Biomarkers, Inc. announced that the company has licensed its intellectual property related to traumatic brain injury (TBI) biomarkers to Abbott for assessment and verification. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "Prior research has shown that protein markers are released in the bloodstream following a brain injury," said Jackson Streeter M.D., CEO, Banyan Biomarkers. "Assessing these biomarkers is an important step forward in providing physicians with an objective test to evaluate patients who may have suffered a concussion." Detecting concussions is often difficult because the physical damage may not be obvious, a CT scan is often normal and symptoms can be similar to those of other medical conditions. Failure to make a correct diagnosis may have serious implications for the patient. In fact, the research indicates that repetitive head injury may lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which shares many features of Alzheimer's isease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, there were approximately 2.2 million emergency department visits due to traumatic brain injuries in 2010.1 As a result, direct and indirect costs of TBI in the US were approximately $76.5 billion in 2010.2 About Banyan Biomarkers Banyan Biomarkers, Inc. is focused on developing a simple point-of-care blood test that could be used by physicians to rapidly detect the presence of mild and moderate brain trauma and improve the medical management of head injured patients. The Company's tests use two protein biomarkers (UCH-L1 and GFAP) that appear in the blood after a brain injury. To learn more about Banyan Biomarkers, visit www.banyanbio.com. References www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6227a2.htm
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