MIP Diagnostics’ COVID-19 nanoMIP offers significantly improved sensitivity to antibodies in a diagnostic sensor

MIP Diagnostics has shared the news that its COVID-19 nanoMIP outperforms commercial antibodies in a sensor platform, which could enable improved detection of lower viral loads during a wider infection period.

Following the launch of its COVID-19 nanoMIP in April 2021, the business has worked with external collaborators to assess the performance of the nanoMIP compared to antibodies, which are used in the majority of rapid diagnostic devices. nanoMIPs are animal free, synthetic alternatives that are chemically produced to mimic an antibody. They can be developed much more rapidly, and offer more consistent, robust properties, making them ideal for use in diagnostic tests with high demand such as those for COVID-19.

The side-by-side analysis compared the sensitivity performance of the MIP Diagnostics’ COVID-19 nanoMIP against a flagship antibody from a leading commercial supplier in a thermal resistance sensor platform. The sensor electrode with nanoMIPs immobilized demonstrated a limit of detection of <5fg/ml, 20 times lower than that of the electrode with the antibodies immobilized which showed 105fg/ml detection limit.

Alan Thomson, Chief Scientific Officer at MIP Diagnostics said, “Antibodies have a long history of use within the IVD sector, and the industry has quickly become accustomed to working around their limitations with regards to stability and lot to lot consistency. nanoMIPs can easily overcome these challenges, and this new data demonstrates they can also offer not just comparable, but superior sensitivity performance when compared side-by-side with antibodies in a sensor application. As this level of performance is demonstrated across more sensor devices, we envisage nanoMIPs becoming the preferred detection agent for sensor developers as well as other diagnostic methods in the future.”

Further tests on other sensor platforms are currently underway and MIP Diagnostics is actively expanding is portfolio of nanoMIPs to other diagnostic biomarkers and active compounds. The COVID-19 nanoMIP is now available for sampling to diagnostic sensor developers.

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