AMRA and Pfizer form novel research alliance

The companies will evaluate the relationship between fat and muscle distribution in the body and metabolic health, including risk factors for conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

The collaboration will use AMRA’s body composition technology and analysis to assess fat and muscle measurements from magnetic resonance (MR) images in up to 7,000 subjects that are currently part of the UK Biobank registry.

It intends to provide a better understanding of the relationship between body composition and risk for obesity associated diseases, as well as about conditions linked to body composition.

The company will analyze results from the collaboration to find new and more specific biomarkers for chronic conditions where body composition plays a key role.

AMRA CEO Tommy Johansson said: "This collaboration has the potential to better understand the relationship between fat and muscle distribution and obesity related conditions such as diabetes, NASH and cardiovascular diseases.

"As more data becomes available via collaborations such as ours, the research and medical community, will be better equipped to make decisions on how to improve and personalise treatments for individuals with obesity related diseases."

Pfizer senior vice president and chief scientific officer of cardiovascular and metabolic disease research Morris Birnbaum said: "Many current techniques to measure intracellular lipid can be cumbersome and expensive, which can limit their use in population studies and clinical trials.

"We hope that AMRA’s technology can help us in developing new drugs to treat diseases associated with lipid overload, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, diabetic heart disease and insulin resistance syndromes."