Lab21 Acquires Novel Real Time PCR Technology

Lab21 Limited has announced the completion of a worldwide licence from Cooperative Diagnostics, to be able to use its new real time PCR technology. The agreement will allow Lab21 (headquartered in Cambridge, UK) to use a suite of patents and expertise from the South Carolina based company, for the development of its growing pipeline of molecular diagnostic kits.

Cooperative Diagnostics has successfully commercialized a series of assays in the infectious disease area, demonstrating the capability of their novel molecular technologies which use biophysical models and statistical bioinformatics.

Graham Mullis, CEO at Lab21 explained “Lab21 has established a global business in immunodiagnostic assays. The company is also developing a pipeline of nucleic-acid tests. The Cooperative Diagnostics technologies bring powerful new tools to our development capability including fifth generation real-time PCR technology and we expect to launch our first CE marked companion diagnostic assays using this technology during the first half of 2012. These tests will be commercialized through our international distribution networks and particularly through our key global OEM partners.”

Dr Berwyn Clarke, CSO at Lab21 said: “As part of this agreement we have exclusive use of this technology on a set of defined biomarker targets particularly in the oncology and infectious disease areas. Preliminary work has shown that assay development times can be reduced significantly and that performance is often better in terms of existing gold standards of sensitivity and specificity. We expect the technology to deliver a substantial number of new assays in the first 12 months and will be of significant interest to pharmaceutical companies needing to fast track companion diagnostic development.”

Dr. Brent C. Satterfield, Cooperative Diagnostics’ President and Founder, said: “This agreement with Lab21 allows us to accelerate our rate of test development and deployment. We are confident that our technology will provide a springboard to strengthen Lab21’s continued growth into the coming years.”