When BG Medicine (NSDQ:BGMD) took itself public last month, three years after first announcing (then scuttling) its first initial public offering, investors seemed to like what they saw. Sure, the company cut its share price in half just ahead of the $7-per-share offering Feb. 11, but shares have averaged nearly $8.41 since then — a 20.1 percent increase.*
Cardiac Markers
Inverness, BG Medicine ink development pact for heart failure test
BG Medicine Inc. and Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. (NYSE:IMA) inked a deal to develop and commercialize a galectin-3 test for heart failure.
The Waltham, Mass.-based companies said Inverness will develop the test for its Triage Meter Pro testing platform in collaboration with BG, which will support the effort and its regulatory filings, according to a press release.
BG Medicine touts study of heart attack mortality test
BG Medicine Inc. said its galectin-3 test to predict the risk of dying from heart failure did well in a controlled, peer-reviewed clinical trial published in the journal Clinical Research in Cardiology.
The report summarizing the study, "Prognostic value of galectin-3, a novel marker of fibrosis, in patients with chronic heart failure: data from the DEAL-HF study," showed that the Waltham, Mass-based company’s test for the galectin-3 biomarker was "a significant predictor of mortality risk," according to a press release. The trial followed 232 patients with an average age of 71 (plus or minus a decade), 72 percent of whom were male. After six-and-a-half years, 98 of the patients, or 37.4 percent, had died.
BG Medicine inks research pact to ID at-risk heart disease patients
BG Medicine Inc. is taking part in a study that could someday lead to a simple blood test for heart disease.
The Waltham-based diagnostic equipment maker said it is working with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Boston University to analyze about 1,000 bio-samples taken as part of the more than 60-year Framingham Heart Study.