News release.......Amorfix Test For vCJD Achieves 100% Specificity On 20,000 Blood Donations In FranceTORONTO, Jun 24, 2009 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX News Network) --
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Amorfix LifeSciences, a company focused on treatments and diagnostics for brainwasting diseases, today announced it has tested 20,000 blood donationsin France using its EP-vCJD(TM) blood screening test as part of alarge-scale study to demonstrate the feasibility of routine testing ofblood donations for vCJD. At the UK specification of a requiredsensitivity of 1:100,000 dilution of vCJD brain, the Amorfix test was100% specific with no false positive samples on repeat testing. Thetest performed five times better than required as it was still 100%specific at a sensitivity of 1:500,000 dilution of vCJD brain. At themaximum sensitivity of 1:1,000,000 dilution of vCJD brain, the test was99.90% specific which exceeds the 99.85% specificity required by the UKBlood Transfusion Service. The complete Strasbourg study will bepresented today at le Congrès 2009 de la Société Francaise deTransfusion Sanguine in Strasbourg.
"France has taken a leadingrole in assessing the feasibility of testing routine blood donationsfor vCJD by establishing the Amorfix test in two major bloodtransfusion centers," said Dr. George Adams, Chief Executive Officer ofAmorfix. "The Amorfix test continues to demonstrate its readiness foruse by high-risk nations to conduct prevalence studies to assess thesafety of their blood supply."