NEW YORK (360Dx) – UK diagnostics firm Mologic recently announced a $4.8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to establish a diagnostics technology center.
Mologic will use the grant to create the center called CARD within the company to develop new diagnostic methods for detecting protein biomarkers at the point of care. The firm said that the technology is being developed with a focus on manufacturing costs and ease of use so that it would be deployable throughout the developing world.
Paul Davis, Mologic's CSO and a member of the team that developed lateral flow immunoassay technology in the 1980s, said that CARD's focus now is to "revamp, update, or supercede the immunochromatographic assay workhorse that have served the industry so well."
"I have no doubt that the new technology will enable the use of newly discovered low-concentration biomarkers and known biomarkers of infection much earlier than has previously been possible, leading to a new power to predict and diagnose many troublesome diseases," he said.
The grant will allow the company to develop a technology that meets required performance targets, Mologic said, adding that it will also enable collaborations with technology providers.