Bio-Techne (TECH.Q), together with Kantaro Biosciences, a commercial affiliate of Mount Sinai Health, announced today the expected release of their COVID-SeroIndex antibody kit.
The SeroIndex test kit is an ELISA, or a enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and it’s designed to quantify the presence or absence of anti-COVID-19 antibodies, as well as measuring the level of antibodies a person has in production.
“The COVID-SeroIndex test kit is a natural extension of the previously announced Bio-Techne and Kantaro partnership. We are hopeful that this assay can accelerate the near-term launch of a successful COVID-19 vaccine due to its high level of accuracy and robustness,” said Chuck Kummeth, president and chief executive officer of Bio-Techne.
The full technical term for the kit is a Kantaro Quantitative SARS-CoV-2 IgG Antibody RUO kit. It uses two virus antigens, including the full length spike protein and its receptor binding domain. The tech was created by virologists and pathologists at Mount Sinai and has been broadly tested on over 50,000 patient samples.
“We’re thrilled to launch this additional research assay with Bio-Techne, continue building our understanding of COVID-19, and make this tool available globally to researchers. Mount Sinai has invested heavily in this technology and in leading research and clinical care for COVID-19. We recognized the need to deliver a high-quality, accurate assay and there has been immense development and application of the underlying technology for this test at Mount Sinai,” said Erik Lium, PhD, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Innovation Officer at Mount Sinai.
Bio-Techne and Kantaro will use a joint commercialization and distribution team to get as much of the assay to the vaccine development community as possible. They intend to have it available for research use by early August.
—Joseph Morton