Title: A cost-effective and broadly applicable mimetope based diagnostic platform for high-impact pandemics

Link: https://www.catalyze-group.com/case/aegirbio-covid-19-diagnostics/

The aim of TESTOMETIC is to enable a novel PoC diagnosis for highly specific and sensitive serology tests for Covid-19. Serology tests for the detection of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 are an important step in the assessment and pandemic. However, the SARS-COV-2 serology tests currently available (including non-mimetop PoC tests) come with technological / practical challenges related to the detection of reagents, sensitivity, and the type of information they contain . This hinders effective individual disease management and quick social response to present or future outbreaks. Both also suffer from high failure rates. BioMedomics’ test, the recombinant viral protein as an agent, showed 10% false positive and false negative rates, which has resulted in numerous products being removed from the market. The false positive rate is particularly worrying as it can lead people to believe they are compromising their social networks. In addition, even with an exact test, it is not yet known whether antibodies confer complete protective immunity, regardless of whether antibody titres correlate with susceptibility to disease or with severity, or whether various epitopes (part of an antigen recognized by the immune system) involve reactivities. Therefore, in-vitro diagnostic assay (IVD) developers and society at large could benefit greatly if advanced serology testing platforms were available to address these challenges. TESTOMETIC is developing a next generation PoC diagnostic test on the Magnia Reader LFA platform. The consortium will develop sensitive and accurate Covid-19 IgG and IgM, 2 cassette tests. This platform is used for the development of the COVID-19 test as the first benchmark product.

Partner Institutions

• Aegirbio
• LIONEX GmbH