NEW YORK – Burst Diagnostics said this week that it has received a Phase I SBIR grant to develop a rapid strep test leveraging the firm's CaDI technology. The six-month grant is for $279,557, said Burst CEO Charles Henry. CaDI, short for capillary-driven immunoassay, leverages chemiluminescence technology to provide performance that’s similar to an ELISA and in a format that operates like a lateral flow assay, but with a 100-to-1,000-time improvement in sensitivity and specificity compared to lateral flow tests, according to the Fort Collins, Colorado-based company's website.
Agilent Technologies' board of directors this week declared a quarterly dividend of $.23 per common share payable Oct. 25 to all shareholders of record as of the close of the market on Oct. 3.
Abbott announced this week that its board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $.51 per share, payable Nov. 15 to shareholders of record on Oct. 13.
DermTech said this week that it has signed agreements with Highmark, which, alongside a favorable coverage policy, enhance access to the firm's noninvasive melanoma test. Highmark and its Blue-branded affiliates provide health insurance to approximately 7 million members in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New York. "We are pleased to expand our connection with one of the largest Blues plans in the US and further reduce barriers to access with our test now available as an in-network benefit," Chris Murphy, DermTech's senior director of payor access, said in a statement. The company claims total covered lives in the US of approximately 133 million.
Biocept said this week that it has completed enrollment in the feasibility phase of its FORESEE clinical trial, in which it is evaluating its CNSide liquid biopsy assay as a tool to monitor treatment responses and help guide treatment decisions. The firm enrolled 40 patients with breast or non-small cell lung cancer with leptomeningeal metastases. Biocept expects to have results from the feasibility phase during the first half of 2024 and to begin enrolling patients to the trial's validation phase.
Finnish diagnostic company Uniogen Oy announced this week that it has signed a five-year agreement with Swedish firm Lumito to manufacture Lumito’s immunohistochemical reagent kit, SCIZYS Erbium Kit. Lumito’s technology uses up converting nanoparticles that allow for higher-contrast images without irrelevant background info in digital pathology applications, the companies said in a statement. The kit enables the identification of primary or secondary antibodies in histological samples.
German diagnostics firm Cerca Biotech said this week that its quality management system has achieved ISO 13485:2016 certification for the design, development, production, and distribution of in vitro diagnostics and software for molecular testing. The Berlin-based company, a subsidiary of Shuwen Biotech, offers MammaTyper, a PCR-based breast cancer subtyping test.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on 360Dx.