Astute Medical, Inc. today announced the signing of an agreement with Shanghai Fosun Long March Medicine Science Co. Ltd. (Fosun Long-March), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co. Ltd. (FOSUNPHARMA), for distribution of Astute's NephroCheck® Test on the Astute140® Meter in China. In addition to its planned launch of the NephroCheck® Test in China, FOSUNPHARMA invested $20 million in Astute.
The agreement with Fosun Long-March will expand the global presence of the NephroCheck® Test, the only test that has received U.S. regulatory clearance as an aid in the assessment of risk for acute kidney injury (AKI), a dangerous complication that afflicts up to 50 percent of intensive care unit (ICU) patients in the United States and is recognized as a health threat worldwide. A recent study states that AKI is both common in hospitalized adults in China, and associated with significantly higher in-hospital mortality and resource utilization.
Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Fosun Long-March will be the distributor of the NephroCheck® Test on the Astute140® Meter in China. Further financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
"Astute's product helps us with early detection of AKI, which is still an unmet market in China. It enables a great improvement in the treatment and prognosis of the disease and reduces the incidence of serious consequences that may arise. The test provides a great help to individual patients and the medical system as a whole," said Dr. Joel Zhang, chief executive officer of Fosun Long-March.
"Our strategy is to deliver the benefits of the NephroCheck® Test to hospitals around the globe, and we are delighted to have Fosun Long-March as a partner," said Chris Hibberd, Astute chief executive officer. "Worldwide, hospital physicians attempting to manage AKI are plagued by delayed detection, uncertainty and a lack of diagnostic tools that are useful in preliminary or early stages. The NephroCheck® Test addresses this gap by aiding in risk assessment, which could help prevent irreversible damage."
The NephroCheck® Test is an innovation in AKIrisk assessment that is designed to help ICU physicians proactively identify and stratify patients at risk of developing AKI, in the hopes of avoiding severe consequences. The NephroCheck® Test is designed to detect the presence of two key biomarkers, TIMP-2 and IGFBP-7, which have been rigorously validated as predictors of moderate to severe AKI.
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