For a patient with early Parkinson's disease, the path to a confident diagnosis can stretch over months of clinic visits, imaging, and watchful waiting. The standard of care today still leans heavily on neurologic exams, structural MRI, and in select cases DaTscan imaging, with cerebrospinal fluid assays available but invasive. Confirmatory biomarkers in blood are only beginning to enter routine practice for Alzheimer's, and remain investigational for most other neurodegenerative conditions. Into that gap steps FBB Biomed, an Iowa City company that says it has built the first Research Use Only liquid biopsy test dedicated to neurologic diseases, drawn from a single tube of blood [FBB Biomed website].
The patient population FBB is aiming at is broad and, by any measure, underserved: people being evaluated for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, depression, schizophrenia, and long COVID. According to a notice from the University of Iowa Research Park, FBB has signed a laboratory services agreement with Verici Dx plc to run its RUO tests for clinicians seeking molecular insight into those conditions [University of Iowa Research Park]. RUO is a regulatory category, not an approved diagnostic claim. The tests are intended to inform research and clinician judgment, not to substitute for an FDA-cleared in vitro diagnostic. That distinction matters, and FBB's own materials are careful about it.
The bet
FBB's wedge is a blood-based assay that profiles RNA biomarkers, including a virology dataset the company describes as part of a broader Personalized Genomic Intelligence panel [FBB Biomed website]. The scientific premise is that RNA signatures, including signals from human endogenous and exogenous viral elements, can map the metabolic dysfunction underlying neurologic disease. The company first developed a blood test for RNA biomarkers intended to predict COVID-19 disease severity, which was profiled by GenomeWeb during the pandemic [GenomeWeb]. That early work has since been redirected toward neurologic indications, with the commercial wrapper coming from the December 2024 step of moving the RUO test into a CLIA and CAP-certified laboratory environment through Verici Dx [FBB Biomed website].
The buyer, for now, is the clinician-researcher rather than the payer. RUO testing is a familiar on-ramp in molecular diagnostics: laboratories generate evidence, clinicians order tests for research-informed care, and the data accumulated can later support a regulatory submission for a clinical claim. Companies including Grail and Natera took versions of this path before pursuing broader clinical authorization.
Why it could matter
The scientific tailwinds behind blood-based neurologic testing are real. Plasma p-tau217 assays for Alzheimer's have moved into clinical use in the last two years, and the FDA cleared Fujirebio's Lumipulse blood test for Alzheimer's biomarkers in 2025. Regulators in both the United States and Europe have signaled openness to less invasive biomarker strategies in neurodegeneration. A test that could provide useful molecular signal across multiple neurologic conditions from one blood draw, even at the research stage, would be of interest to academic neurology groups and to pharma sponsors running trials in Parkinson's, ALS, and long COVID, where stratification biomarkers are scarce.
FBB's backing reflects its early stage and its university roots. The company has disclosed roughly $326,000 in seed funding in August 2020 [Tracxn], a $20,000 prize from the Iowa Innovation Challenge in November 2021 [Clay & Milk], and back-to-back wins at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center's graduate and faculty pitch competitions in July 2022 and July 2023, worth $5,000 and $7,500 respectively [Iowa JPEC]. The University of Iowa Research Park lists FBB among its resident companies [University of Iowa Research Park].
Seed round (Aug 2020) | 326000 | USD
Iowa Innovation Challenge grant (Nov 2021) | 20000 | USD
JPEC grant (Jul 2022) | 5000 | USD
JPEC grant (Jul 2023) | 7500 | USD
The team and traction
FBB is led by Howard Urnovitz as Chief Executive Officer [Crunchbase]. Urnovitz's research career, reflected in his ResearchGate profile, has centered on RNA virology and biomarker discovery [ResearchGate], a background that aligns directly with the company's technical premise. The company maintains close working relationships with the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, and the University of Michigan, per its own about page [FBB Biomed website]. The most concrete commercial milestone to date is the Verici Dx laboratory services agreement, which moves the RUO menu from internal research into a certified lab capable of accepting clinician-ordered samples [University of Iowa Research Park].
The honest counterfactual
What skeptics will note is that the neurologic biomarker field is crowded with well-funded incumbents. C2N Diagnostics, Quanterix, Roche, and Fujirebio have all pushed plasma assays for Alzheimer's into clinical or near-clinical use, and none of FBB's RNA-signature claims for Parkinson's, ALS, schizophrenia, or long COVID have yet appeared in peer-reviewed validation studies cited in the materials available here. The bull answer, grounded in the company's own disclosures, is that FBB is not trying to displace single-analyte plasma assays. It is offering a multi-condition RNA panel through an RUO channel, with a CLIA and CAP-certified lab partner already in place [FBB Biomed website], which is a defensible posture for an early company building evidence ahead of any clinical claim. The work that needs to follow, peer-reviewed analytical and clinical validation studies for each indication, is the gating item for whether this becomes a referenceable diagnostic platform or remains a research tool.
What to watch
The next twelve months should clarify three things. First, whether FBB and Verici Dx publish or present analytical validation data on the RUO panel at a major neurology meeting such as AAN or AD/PD. Second, whether the company secures research collaborations with disease foundations or pharma sponsors running trials in Parkinson's, ALS, or long COVID, where blood-based stratification biomarkers are in active demand. Third, whether a priced Series A follows, which would signal that institutional investors are ready to underwrite the cost of clinical validation studies that an eventual FDA submission would require.
For patients and the clinicians who care for them, the lede remains the same: a single blood draw that could meaningfully sharpen the differential in early neurologic disease would be a humane improvement over today's standard of care. Whether FBB's RNA-and-virology approach delivers on that promise is, properly, a question for the data.
Pulse Raman, Health and Bio Correspondent, Startuply.