NEW YORK — Japanese diagnostics firm Sysmex said on Wednesday that it has signed an agreement to acquire a 24.9 percent stake in Astrego Diagnostics.
The purchase price of the stake was not disclosed.
Astrego — a spinout of Uppsala University — has developed a system called Captiver that uses microfluidics and image analysis technologies to rapidly detect bacterial infection and antibiotic susceptibility in biofluid, and it is currently developing panels for urinary tract infections (UTIs) and sepsis. A paper describing the UTI was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to Sysmex, Astrego will use its investment to commercialize the UTI panel for use in clinics and other primary care settings in markets including Japan, Europe, and the US.
A week ago, Sysmex said its Lynoamp BC IVD reagent for detecting cytokeratin 19 mRNA in sentinel lymph nodes removed during breast cancer surgery received Class III approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration.