New analyzer to identify dangerous viruses developed in Novosibirsk

Print 08 February 2016
Marchmont Innovation News

Researchers at Medical Biological Union (MBU), a biotech company in Novosibirsk, in Siberia, have come up with a new immune-enzyme test system that is said to be able to identify four of the world’s most dangerous viruses simultaneously, the Russian news agency TASS  reported , citing Darya Popova, the developer’s head of marketing. 

“Our analyzer enables us to look into blood serum for four socially critical diseases all together. These include HIV infection, C and B type hepatitis, and syphilis. It takes 90 minutes to get a result,” the news agency quoted the company spokesperson as saying. 

The new system is reported to make it possible to search for specific antibodies in blood or for antigens to specific diseases in order to determine both root causes and stages of a medical condition. 

Russia’s healthcare organizations have had to import such test systems thus far, with reagents bought separately. The weakening national currency has more than doubled the ruble-denominated cost of the system and the reagents since last December. 

The Siberian alternative will cost just over 30% of the price of imports, Ms. Popova said. 

She explained that the new analyzer and special reagents, also a proprietary solution developed by MBU, will enable physicians to take little time to diagnose a number of other diseases as well, such as chlamydia infection, parotitis, mycoplasmosis and TORCH infections, most dangerous to prenatal development of a fetus. 

According to Ms. Popova, such systems could be used in blood donation centers, where a donor is tested for the above four infections anyway, and in any clinical laboratory. 

“We have plans to set up serial production by mid-2016,” the MBU spokesperson said.

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