Member Article

Newcastle biotech firm land £1million to develop TB diagnosis

A Newcastle biotech firm has been awarded £1 million funding to develop a cheap test that will diagnose multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

Centre for Life-based QuantuMDx will develop a test that works within 15 minutes, giving immediate personalised prescription of the most effective TB drug treatment.

It will incorporate the company’s universal handheld diagnostic device and will benefit developing nations with a lack of healthcare infrastructure and the overburdened healthcare systems of developed nations.

The three year £2m project will integrate QuantuMDx’s state of the art DNA analysis device with a novel sputum disruption technology and a comprehensive TB biomarker panel developed by St George’s, University of London and its partners.

QuantuMDx’s chief scientific officer and co-founder Jonathan O’Halloran said “Currently MDR-TB diagnostic and drug resistance testing is carried out in slow, expensive referral or satellite laboratories. By the time results are returned weeks or months later, the patient is often lost to the system.

“The only way we can effectively treat and prevent the spread of MDR-TB is to perform rapid testing at the patients’ side, enabling the immediate prescription of targeted drug treatments. Our robust handheld device is ideal for use in field settings, and is responsive to the addition of hundreds, even thousands, of new markers of disease as these are discovered thus providing a one-stop future proofed testing device meeting the testing needs of communities worldwide.”

QuantuMDx’s technology will allow doctors, nurses and health professionals alike to perform complex testing that will guide prescription of targeted drug treatments.

The patient’s mucus sample is automatically prepared in a specially designed sample cup, which is then integrated in a closed system with the device’s disposable test cartridge.

With the press of a single button, the device will automatically extract, amplify and detect the TB DNA using a range of innovative lab-on-a-chip technologies, providing a diagnostic and drug susceptibility result in under 15 minutes.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .