Florbetapir (18F), sold under the brand name Amyvid, is a PET scanning radiopharmaceutical compound containing the radionuclide fluorine-18 that was approved for use in the United States in 2012,[4] as a diagnostic tool for Alzheimer's disease.

[9][10] Initial tests in 2007 on a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore previously diagnosed with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease detected plaque in a PET scan in areas where it was typically found in the brain.

[9] In order to confirm if the isotope was accurate in detecting Alzheimer's, an advisory committee at the Food and Drug Administration demanded that the team of Avid, Bayer and General Electric perform a study to test their method.

[9] In January 2011, Avid reported on the results of further studies conducted based on 152 test subjects who had agreed to receive the company's PET scans and to have their brains analyzed after death for definitive determination of the presence of amyloid plaques.

Avid's technique is being used to test the efficacy of Alzheimer's disease treatments being developed by other pharmaceutical firms as a means of determining the ability of the drugs to reduce the buildup of amyloid protein in the brains of living subjects.

The advisory committee included a qualification requiring Avid to develop clear guidelines establishing when the tests had spotted enough of the amyloid plaque to make a diagnosis of Alzheimer's.