NEW YORK ─ Bio-Techne on Tuesday announced a collaboration with Indian eye hospital Narayana Nethralaya to develop a diagnostic test for ophthalmology disorders on Bio-Techne's Ella multiplexing immunoassay instrument.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Bio-Techne will provide Ella instruments and Simple Plex assay cartridges for customized ophthalmology evaluations.
Bangalore, India-based Narayana Nethralaya, an eye hospital that sees nearly half a million patients annually, plans to conduct clinical trials in India with the aim of filing for regulatory approval using Ella as a diagnostic device for ophthalmic applications. Narayana Nethralaya said it will use Ella for the differential diagnosis and monitoring of patients with ophthalmic disorders.
Financial and other terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
"The use of Ella during the diagnostic development process provides significant benefits over manual ELISA-based approaches, enabling faster biomarker screening," Arkasubhra Ghosh, director of Grow Laboratory at Narayana Nethralaya, said in a statement.
Minneapolis-based Bio-Techne said its ProteinSimple-branded Ella instrument, currently available for research use, allows immunoassays to be run without manual intervention. The instrument provides results in 90 minutes and requires only 25 µL of sample.
Bio-Techne CEO Chuck Kummeth said in a statement that the firm believes Ella "has great potential as a clinical diagnostic system," and it intends to pursue such applications in the future.