Shrewsbury,
Abbott has been very active with XRMV. An Abbott researcher presented back in February at the CROI and I posted information regarding XMRV. Here is a link:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CROI/18610
Abbott's interest is because is produces equipment for large scale screening of the blood supply for Hepatitis B, Hep C, HIV, etc. I believe they already have tests ready to go or close to ready for XMRV.
Here is more info from this link:
http://pharmexec.findpharma.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=661633&sk=&date=&pageID=4
When XMRV was first discovered in 2005, pharma held back because it was reported that the virus appeared to be inactive in prostate cancer cells. B
ut Abbott Diagnostics jumped at the challenge of developing assays to detect XMRV. Last month, Abbott HIV Global Surveillance Program's John Hackett reported early progress on several fronts. But the main takeaway was that detecting XMRV in human blood samples is proving far more difficult than the WPI study had led anyone to expect. Using their new assay that can detect three different antibody proteins, the Abbott team found XMRV in only three of 2,851 random human samples. That's good news for the general populationa .01 percent extrapolated prevalence ratebut bad news for CFS patients.
Here is another headline from last September:
http://www.abbott.com/global/url/pressRelease/en_US/60.5:5/Press_Release_0776.htm
Abbott Receives FDA Approval for First Fully Automated Blood Screening Test for HIV-1/HIV-2
New Test Completes the ABBOTT PRISM Hepatitis and Retrovirus Panel
Abbott Park, Illinois (NYSE: ABT) Abbott announced today it received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its ABBOTT PRISM HIV O Plus test, the first fully automated blood screening test for HIV-1/HIV-2. This test can be used by laboratory professionals to screen individual donors of blood and plasma for antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Groups M and O (anti-HIV-1) andtype 2 (anti-HIV-2), and as an aid in the diagnosis of HIV-1/HIV-2 infection.
The assay, which provides laboratories a fully automated test compared to the current method, runs on the ABBOTT PRISM system, which can run 160 samples per hour, making it possible to test more than 1,200 samples in an eight-hour shift. Speed and efficiency are important to labs given the volume of blood that is screened each year. According to the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), eight million volunteers donate about 15 million units of whole blood each year in the United States alone. Each donated unit of blood must be tested for infectious diseases including hepatitis, HIV and other retroviruses. Abbotts hepatitis and retrovirus tests are used thousands of times every day around the globe for blood screening and diagnostic testing.
With this approval, Abbott now has a complete panel of hepatitis and retrovirus tests on the ABBOTT PRISM system which includes the following assays: a hepatitis B core test (ABBOTT PRISM HBcore); a hepatitis B surface antigen test (ABBOTT PRISM HBsAg along with ABBOTT PRISM HBsAg Confirmatory); a hepatitis C test (ABBOTT PRISM HCV); and a human T- lymphotropic virus test (ABBOTT PRISMHTLV-I/HTLV-II). Used in more than 30 countries, the ABBOTT PRISM is used to screen the majority of the blood supply in the United States and around the world.
"Abbott has a strong heritage in HIV assay development, beginning in 1985 with the first blood-screening test for HIV approved in the United States," said Mike Warmuth, senior vice president, diagnostics, Abbott. "The approval of ABBOTT PRISM HIV O Plus marks an important milestone as we continue our leadership in HIV and our work to ensure the safety of the world's blood supply."
