Cytiva launches new services for diagnostic developers and will establish new labs to meet the future needs of the industry. Cytiva Diagnostic Services will help developers bring point-of-care diagnostic tests to market quicker through infrastructure, expertise and consultation for point of care immunoassay development. A multi-million dollar investment will be used partly to expand chemistry labs in Cardiff, Wales as well as establishing design labs in Germany and China.
Cytiva has had a critical role working with diagnostic developers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, over 50 million people have been PCR tested using components or services from Cytiva. Diagnostic components, such as nitrocellulose membranes, are used in 18 immunoassay-based COVID-19 tests available today.
Alastair Smith, CEO of Avacta, comments: “Cytiva has been a key partner in developing a rapid coronavirus antigen test and we continue to work closely with them, and our manufacturing partners, to finalise the test in a format suitable for massively scaled-up manufacturing processes to meet the anticipated demand.”
Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) offers reagents and therapeutics based on Affimer technology for diagnostic and research applications in the United Kingdom. The company’s custom Affimer products are also used in drugs and biomarkers discovery in biotech research and development.
