World’s First Biomarker Blood Test to Assess MS Progression

Multiple sclerosis (MS) disease activity is caused by an abnormal immune response that results in damage to the brain and spinal cord. However, there is a lack of reliable tools to measure or predict MS progression. Today, physicians and patients must rely on subjective assessments and infrequent imaging, leaving critical changes undetected until disability has advanced. Now, a new test combining multi-protein biomarkers with AI-driven algorithms aims to deliver objective scores that track progression over time, empowering physicians to make earlier, more confident treatment decisions.

Octave Bioscience (Menlo Park, CA, USA) is advancing the development of the Multiple Sclerosis Disease Progression (MSDP) Test, the world’s first biomarker blood test for MS progression. This test builds on the success of Octave’s MS Disease Activity (MSDA) Test, the first validated AI-enabled multi-protein blood test for MS. Octave’s test will combine multi-protein biomarkers with AI-driven algorithms to deliver objective scores that track progression over time, empowering physicians to make earlier, more confident treatment decisions.

Image: The test will combine multi-protein biomarkers with AI-driven algorithms to measure MS progression (Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock)

Delivered as a simple blood test, the MSDP Test is being designed for all MS patients, including Relapsing Remitting MS (RRMS), Primary Progressive MS (PPMS), and Secondary Progressive MS (SPMS). Octave will make efforts to identify individual proteins and develop multi-analyte biomarker models, advancing the MSDP Test toward commercial viability as a complementary solution to MSDA.

In collaboration with leading academic partners worldwide, Octave will use advanced assays to study proteins in MS patients, with findings to be published in a leading peer-reviewed journal. The MSDP Test addresses one of the most urgent unmet needs in MS: the lack of reliable tools to measure or predict progression.

“Octave is poised to tackle one of the most critical problems facing the MS field, that of reliably measuring the biology of progressive disease,” said Dr. Jennifer Graves, Senior Medical Advisor at Octave. “If you can measure something, you can target it. Octave's delivery of a progressive MS biomarker test will fuel therapeutic development and improved management of the most challenging aspects of MS.”

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Octave Bioscience