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BNP: Can Competitors Catch Up to Biosite?

Biosite has spent the last year building demand for its point-of-care testing (POCT) cardiac marker for chronic heart failure, BNP. The test is poised to be a major successs for Biosite, not least because it has semi-exclusive licensing rights (from Scios), which limit competition and because of the perceived value of its clinical utility. It could be a major victory for a small POCT company. But for Biosite, the hard part is just beginning as competition surfaces from other licensees and similar markers. Most immediately, Roche just launched a similar marker and is gearing up for battle.

Plucky Biosite Inc. has been more successful than most diagnostics companies at grabbing the jackpot—ownership of proprietary, novel, high-value biomarkers with widespread clinical utility. (See "Biosite's Play for High-Value Diagnostics," IN VIVO, April 1999 Also see "BioSite's Play for High-Value Diagnostics" - In Vivo, 1 April, 1999..) Such markers rarely come along. But for nearly two years, the point-of-care testing (POCT) company has been the only provider of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), a blood test that is used to diagnose patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) and stratify the severity of their disease.

With excitement about it building for more than a year, BNP seems poised to enter the rarified world of tests...

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