NEW YORK (360Dx) – Finnish infectious disease testing firm ArcDia International today announced an exclusive licensing deal with Xinhua Healthcare Industry for ArcDia's biochemical assay components.
ArcDia also will provide Xinhua with research and development services as part of the deal, which is limited to China. Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The partners' goal is to localize ArcDia's MariPOC testing platform in China and to increase production capacity there in response to the need for decentralized infection diagnostic services in the country, the company said. MariPOC is an automated system for the rapid identification of pathogenic multianalytes and the detection of inflammation biomarkers and antimicrobial resistance. Currently, MariPOC's portfolio covers respiratory tract infections, tonsillitis, and gastroenteritis.
ArcDia also has technology directed at rapid phenotypic antibiotic resistance testing, called MariAST, and at real-time influenza surveillance, called MariCloud.
Xinhua Healthcare is a private holding company based in Zibo City, China.
With the Chinese government investing heavily in healthcare, China "could become the leading country in infection management within a few years," ArcDia CEO Aleski Soini said in a statement. "Moreover, this deal gives ArcDia a significant scale advantage, which also improves the competitiveness of the MariPOC platform in western markets," he added.