Date: 2015-08-26
Type of information: Collaboration agreement
Compound: rapid test for the Ebola virus
Company: Corgenix Medical Corporation (USA - CO) Fio Corporation (Canada)
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
Type agreement: collaboration
Action mechanism:
Disease: Ebola fever
Details: * On March 10, 2015, Corgenix Medical Corporation and Fio Corporation announced that they are working together to integrate two technological advances to help end the Ebola outbreak in West Africa: a rapid test, backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, that can detect the virus in minutes; and a mobile device, which is being adapted with further funding from the Gates Foundation, to analyze and upload results directly to a central data system. Fio is adapting its Deki™ Reader to work with the Corgenix ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test for the Ebola virus, which recently received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA and was listed as eligible for procurement by the World Health Organization (WHO). Combining these technologies will give suspected Ebola patients in the most remote, resource-poor settings, access to automated test results. Results will then immediately be transmitted to Fio’s data system, Fionet™, capturing vital information that is currently missed or delayed. Corgenix researchers on the ground in Sierra Leone have already started using smartphones to transmit images of rapid Ebola test results to the Fionet data system. Together with Fio’s tools for case and contact mapping, this capability offers governments and other organizations responding to the outbreak a way to track the disease in real time. Both companies will continue to work together to integrate the two technologies for decentralized Ebola virus testing throughout West Africa. Beyond the current crisis, this will serve health systems more broadly to better manage future outbreaks, as well as other infectious diseases in the region, such as Lassa virus.
Fio’s Deki Reader – which is already CE-marked for use with rapid tests that detect malaria and dengue fever – is also being adapted for use with the Corgenix ReLASV® Antigen Rapid Test for the Lassa virus.
Both the ReLASV® Antigen Rapid Test and the ReEBOVTM Antigen Rapid Test have not been cleared for routine diagnostic use by the FDA. The ReLASV® Antigen Rapid Test is CE Marked for diagnostic use in EU and other countries that recognize the CE mark.
The ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test is not CE Marked and may only be used as a diagnostic device under the conditions of the Emergency Use Authorization issued by the FDA.
Financial terms: Fio received a Gates Foundation grant in December 2014 to adapt its Deki Reader to analyze rapid Ebola tests and transmit results to Fionet to be integrated with case and contact management tools.
A few weeks later, Corgenix received two grants – one from the Gates Foundation and one from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation – to advance the company’s development of an Ebola rapid test kit.
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