15th April 2016

BBI Solutions launches two new products: human Galectin-3 and Procalcitonin Antigens

BBI Solutions (BBI) has announced the launch of two new antigens, with the potential to help with the early diagnosis of sepsis and the diagnosis of heart failure.

Galectin-3 is a high purity, multi-purpose marker for cardiac failure, as well as a range of cancer types. In normal human hearts the expression of Galectin-3 is low. However, research has suggested that as the disease progresses; Galectin-3 becomes rapidly and significantly up-regulated. Routine Galectin-3 measurements in patients with heart failure could potentially be used to indicate disease progression and identify those patients at highest risk.

According to the WHO, over 17.3 million deaths per year are due to cardiovascular diseases¹. In conjunction with clinical evaluation, Galectin-3 can be used as a biomarker to aid in assessing the prognosis of patients with chronic heart failure. It can also be easily diluted to create different concentrations for use in cardiac risk assessments (heart failure, inflammation and fibrosis).

Simon Packer, BBI Solutions’ Technical Specialist says “our Galectin-3 is a high quality biological raw material, which has the potential to be used as a control or positive sample in assays, to identify those patients at highest risk of heart failure. With more than 96% purity, customers can be confident that BBI’s Galectin-3 will provide batch to batch consistency, delivering reliable assays to the market place.”

Procalcitonin (PCT), BBI’s second product to be launched today, is a marker for early sepsis diagnosis and the management of bacterial infections.

Sepsis is a life threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to an infection injures its own tissues and organs². In the developed world, sepsis has been dramatically increasing by an annual rate of between 8-13% over the last decade, and now claims more lives than bowel and breast cancer combined³.

PCT blood levels in healthy patients are very low, however, can increase within 3-6 hours of systemic infections or inflammation caused by bacterial infections. The half-life of PCT is approximately 24 hours, making it an ideal marker for early sepsis diagnosis. Therefore, it can be used to monitor the progression of the disease and the effectiveness of treatment.

PCT is also extremely useful to physicians, as it enables specific differentiation between bacterial infections and other causes of inflammation, (e.g. allergies, viral infections, auto-immune disease and graft rejection) which do not reveal an increase in PCT.

Both new products from BBI are manufactured at an ISO 9001 accredited site in Sittingbourne, UK, ensuring they are produced to the highest quality standards.

As a company, BBI is committed to working toward a world where everyone has a better quality of life; the introduction of these new products is another step, providing important reagents for accurate diagnosis of disease.

Both Antigens are now available for trial; customers can find out more or request an evaluation sample via the company’s website

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