French firm develops possible test for Alzheimer's

ExonHit Therapeutics, a French company that diagnoses diseases and develops drugs to treat them, said on Thursday it had found a possible blood test for the brain wasting disease Alzheimer's.

"This is an important development as there is currently no diagnostic test that can accurately identify patients with Alzheimer's disease," ExonHit said in a statement.

ExonHit said it had identified a panel of genes that allowed to diagnose from blood the possible presence of Alzheimer's. It said this represented a major step forward from other methods aimed at detecting Alzheimer's from spinal fluids.

From a group of 85 people, 51 of whom had Alzheimer's and 34 did not, the panel of blood genes correctly identified 78 percent of those suffering from the disease and 82 percent of those who did not.

"A prospective clinical study will further define the specificity and selectivity of the (blood) markers identified," ExonHit said.