Blood test said to classify bipolar patients

Curdium Medica, the drug development company specializing in "personalised medicine", tapped investors for more cash yesterday to develop its treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that would allow doctors to classify bipolar patients based on the subgroups of the disorder from which they suffer.

This follows the company's discovery of a blood diagnostic test, named PsychINDx, which classifies patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder into four subgroups. Until now, schizophrenia was considered as one disease and treated as such, not always effectively. But the company hopes to develop drugs that will target the patient depending on which subgroup of the disease they suffer, from instead of the "one-size fits all" treatment currently available.