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

Sebia will 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.

The test is based on the interaction of the free alpha globin chain with the alpha hemoglobin stabilizing protein (AHSP). In the case of beta-thalassemias, there is a synthesis deficit in the beta chain, which has the effect of reducing the amount of hemoglobin A (HbA) in red blood cells and leading to an imbalance between the numbers of alpha and beta chains.

Thus, there is 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-thalassemias, they form precipitates that act like oxidants and damage the cell, resulting in apoptosis (cell death) and inefficient erythropoiesis (red cell production).

The size of the pool of free alpha chains enables determination of the severity of the disease in thalassemia patients, and 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 hemoglobinopathies,” explained Véronique Baudin-Creuza, from Inserm unit U779 at the University of Paris-Sud 11 (Paris, France) and the unit for protein polymerization pathologies, blood substitutes and rare red blood-cell diseases at Bicêtre Hospital (Paris, France).

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