It was just announced that new sample collection and preparation technologies to enable Tuberculosis (TB) testing will now be able to be used on the 3 million patients needing testing in the healthcare systems each year. The technologies to accomplish this goal have been developed by QuantuMDx www.quantumdx.com and St. George’s University of London www.squl.ac.uk.
QuantuMDx announced on World TB day on March 24, 2016, the completion of “Q-TB” a two and a half year UK funded development project to tackle the biggest challenges in TB testing. The Q-TB project is working on finding a simple solution to sputum collection and preparation since sputum is highly variable in consistency and form and known to be difficult to process.
As St George’s Professor Philip Butcher said, “Sample preparation is a critical step in the diagnosis of TB. With the completion of the Q-TB project it will be possible to deliver the simplified sample preparation needed to run precision diagnostics in the community helping to combat the global threat of drug resistant TB”
QuantuMDx’s CEO Elaine Warburton QBE said, “Sample collection is notoriously difficult and in children the process is quite frankly barbaric. The Q-TB consortium is delighted that our sample preparation technology has gained the interest of several NGOs which should help expedite its commercialization both in developing and developed countries.”
Also, current methodologies are time consuming, require highly-trained staff and a range of laboratory equipment. In the case of children, sputum can be time consuming, require highly-trained staff, require a range of laboratory equipment, testing can take weeks to do since it can be difficult to transport to centralized laboratories.
QuantuMDx’s collaboration with St. George University will enable rapid and accurate testing in the community, with a simple sputum preparation process that will be able to prepare the sample for a range of testing. QuantuMDx will use their own handheld molecular diagnostic device Q-POC to do testing on Mycobacterium tuberculosis and drug resistance testing all in minutes by the patient’s side.
Since, 95 percent of TB deaths occur in low and middle income countries Q-POC will be a robust battery device that does not require clean running water and would be very beneficial to use in rural and resource scarce settings and will enable health workers to initiate the right TB treatment plan.
Researchers at St George’s University of London have worked hard to improve prevent, diagnose and treat disease in areas that include infection and immunity, heart disease and stroke, and cell signaling.