Avid Radiopharmaceuticals is a product-focused molecular imagine company. The molecular imaging agents central to Avid were developed by Dr. Hank Kung at the University of Pennsylvania. Avid founder and CEO Dr. Daniel Skovronsky was previously Scientific Director of High Throughput Screening and Drug Discovery at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
From the company’s press release:
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) today announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held company developing novel molecular imaging compounds intended for the detection and monitoring of chronic human diseases. Avid’s lead program in development is florbetapir F 18 (18F-AV-45), a molecular imaging agent under investigation for detecting the presence of amyloid plaque in the brain. Beta-amyloid plaque is a defining pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. A marketing application for florbetapir has recently been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The acquisition of Avid also provides Lilly with a diagnostics development platform covering several disease areas, including Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. read full press release
University Spinoffs 