Type 2 diabetes has a huge impact on patient quality
of life and healthcare costs. To aid in the public health and clinical
efforts to combat the first chronic disease to be declared a global epidemic. Metabolon
is developing a practical, fasting blood test that provides a quantitative, tractable
measure of glucose metabolism for the patient and physician, as a predictive risk
assessment tool for those at-risk for Type 2 diabetes. This diagnostic solution
is named Quantose™.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 25.8 million
children and adults in the U.S., or 8.3% of the population, have diabetes. While
an estimated 18.8 million have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, approximately
7 million are unaware they have the disease. Based on glycemic measures from 2005-2008,
the CDC reported that 35% of the U.S. adult population had pre-diabetes, yielding
an estimated 79 million U.S. adults at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes. With
the total annual cost associated with diabetes treatment at $174 billion (2007)
in the U.S. alone, preventing and managing diabetes and its complications represents
global public health challenges and priorities for healthcare systems.*
With costly diabetic complications including cardiovascular disease, retinopathy,
neuropathy, and nephropathy, significant unmet medical needs exist in both detecting
and risk-stratifying patients who are at high risk for progressing to Type 2 diabetes,
as well as determining appropriate therapy and predicting long-term outcomes in
the diabetes setting.
Using its metabolomics-driven
biomarker discovery platform, Metabolon has discovered
a number of significant biochemical markers indicative of risk for Type 2 diabetes.
These markers are currently being incorporated in the development of the Quantose™
series of diagnostic products. The first-generation Quantose™ product is a
diagnostic test for better identifying high-risk, insulin-resistant patients and
predicting their risk of progression to Type 2 diabetes, above and beyond traditional
risk factors and glycemic tests. The validated test is currently being offered in
Metabolon’s CLIA laboratory as Investigational Use
Only. The Quantose™ product applications will be targeted at different
stages of the Type 2 diabetes continuum, pre-diabetes and therapeutic monitoring,
with the goal of increasing effectiveness of preventing the disease and its complications.
*Reference: Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: national estimates and general information
on diabetes and pre-diabetes in the United States, 2011. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011;
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/references11.htm