Subject: FDA Gives Approval to Abbott to Sell Test 
Date: Published: 2/18/92 (36 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology Brief -- Abbott Laboratories:
    FDA Gives Approval to Sell
    Test for Both AIDS Strains

    Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, Ill., said the Food
 and Drug Administration granted it marketing approval for a
 test that will let blood banks simultaneously check for
 antibodies to both strains of the AIDS virus.
    The agency's action makes the pharmaceutical and
 hospital-products concern the second company with U. S. 
 clearance to sell a combined test for the strains known as
 HIV-1 and HIV-2.
    In comparison to the more widespread HIV-1 AIDS strain for
 which blood banks have been testing since 1985, HIV-2 is
 currently an extremely rare form of the disease in this
 country.
    Last autumn, however, an advisory panel for the FDA
 recommended that the nation's blood banks begin testing for
 HIV-2 by June of this year.
    A number of companies make tests to find the antibodies
 for HIV-1.  But until Abbott got the FDA's nod, the only
 company currently cleared to market a test for HIV-2, or a
 simultaneous test for both strains -- which is the most
 logical and attractive format for blood agencies -- has been
 Genetic Systems Corp., a Seattle unit of France's Elf
 Aquitaine.
    Abbott said its combination assays are currently available
 in "a number of countries" outside the U. S. 

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