New Sebia Partnership for Development of Unique Thalassaemia Diagnostic Test

Sebia announced yesterday that it has entered into partnership with Inserm (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and Inserm Transfert, its private subsidiary responsible for marketing the outcomes of its scientific research, to develop and commercialize a unique biological test for measuring free alpha globin chains in beta-thalassaemic patients. The test will indicate the severity index of the disease in patients.

Negotiated by Inserm Transfert, the collaboration calls for Sebia to support the research carried out by Inserm, who will then develop the test. In return, Sebia will have the possibility of acquiring exclusive rights to industrially develop and commercialize the test internationally.

“By teaming up with Inserm, Sebia is strengthening its commitment to the research and development of tools for diagnosing haemoglobinopathies and monitoring their treatment,” said Benoît Adelus, President and CEO of Sebia. “This test is an important innovation. It will complement the solutions currently offered by Sebia, which are designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of these haemoglobinopathies.”

“This test provides an immediate indication of the severity of the disease, since the results can be available within a day, whereas it took a week with the old methods,” said Kamran Moradkhani, an associate practitioner at Henri Mondor-Chenevier Hospital. “It ensures that diagnosis is oriented towards identifying the different mutations at work and gives us highly relevant indicators for comparing different groups of patients.”

The test is based on the interaction of the free alpha globin chain with the alpha haemoglobin stabilizing protein (AHSP). In the case of beta-thalassaemias, there is a synthesis deficit in the beta chain, which has the effect of reducing the amount of haemoglobin A (HbA) in red blood cells and leading to an imbalance between the numbers of alpha and beta chains. This imbalance leads to a relative excess of alpha chains. These chains are very unstable, and despite the fact that the AHSP plays the role of chaperone (capable of controlling and stabilizing them), in people suffering from beta-thalassaemias, they form precipitates that act like oxidants and damage the cell, resulting in apoptosis (cell death) and inefficient erythropoiesis (cell production). According to the size of the pool of free alpha chains, one can determine the severity of the disease in thalassaemia patients, but also in patients with a synthesis imbalance in their globin chains.

“We were looking for a company that was interested in developing this test, and the choice fell quite naturally to Sebia, since we have known the company for a long time and its interest in researching diagnostic tools for haemoglobinopathies,” explained Véronique Baudin-Creuza, from Inserm unit U779 at the University of Paris-Sud 11 and the unit for protein polymerization pathologies, blood substitutes and rare red blood cell diseases at Bicêtre Hospital.