2011 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Avid reported on the results of further studies conducted based on 152 test subjects who had agreed to receive the company's PET scans and to have their brains analyzed after death for definitive determination of the presence of amyloid plaques. Of the patients included in the study, 29 who died had autopsies performed on their brains and in all but one the brain autopsy results matched the diagnosis based on the PET scan taken before death. Avid's technique is being used to test the efficacy of Alzheimer's disease treatments being developed by other pharmaceutical firms as a means of determining the ability of the drugs to reduce the buildup of amyloid protein in the brains of living subjects. On January 20, 2011, an FDA advisory committee unanimously recommended that Avid's PET scan technique be approved for use. The advisory committee included a qualification requiring the firm to develop clear guidelines establishing when the tests had spotted enough of the amyloid plaque in order to make a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, a task that Avid CEO Skovronsky stated could be resolved in several months. Other Radiopharmaceuticals Avid is sponsoring clinical trials of [18F]AV-133 (or [18F]Fluoropropyl-(+)-DTBZ) to identify subjects with dopaminergic degeneration. See also Nuclear medicine List of PET radiotracers References External links Company website Alzheimer's disease research Pharmaceutical companies established in 2005 Biotechnology companies established in 2005 Companies based in Philadelphia