NovaUCD company secure €1.2 million investment
By Denis Vaughan | Nov 29 2011
Biosensia, a spin-in company based at NovaUCD, has secured a €1.2 million investment, which they will use to advance their commercial partnership strategy and develop its new technology, RapiPlex.NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre, is responsible for the commercialisation of research carried out at UCD. It also works with UCD researchers in establishing what business model is most suitable for the commercialisation of the intellectual property. This can mean licensing to partners or creating spin-in companies such as Biosensia.“The idea was generated by the company founders and executive team as an answer to an unmet market need for fast, versatile and low-cost point of care platform technology,” explains Chief Executive Officer of Biosensia, Diarmuid Flavin.RapiPlex can perform up to twelve separate analyses simultaneously on a single sample and provides test results in as little as five minutes. The RapiPlex platform is suitable for use in a wide range of areas; to test for infectious diseases such as HIV, respiratory diseases and STDs, as well as carrying out hormone and allergy testing. It can also be used to test for drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine. The product is suitable for roadside use, which means it could potentially be used by the Gardaí to test suspected drug users.The product has huge potential for the healthcare sector. Flavin states that “our technology allows the transition of complex immunoassays from the centralised laboratory out into the community. Tests which traditionally could only be carried out in a large central laboratory can, through the use of Biosensia’s technology, be carried out in doctors’ offices and other point of care environments. Biosensia technology allows the use of a wide variety of samples types and can test for up to twelve different analytes from a single patient sample”.“The technology will mostly be used in human clinical diagnostic settings such as a hospital A&E department or a doctor’s office. However, the technology also has applications in other fields such as veterinary medicine, environmental testing, and food and beverage testing.”Biosensia’s main aim is to achieve FDA approval for their first product by the end of 2012. They also plan to engage with commercial partners to bring additional products to the market. The company was recognised as a new innovator in the Irish Times Innovation Magazine in August as a result of their revolutionary new technology.