GEN’s John Sterling is on the scene at the 32nd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Here is his latest dispatch: 

QuantuMDx expects to begin beta testing its Q-POC point-of-care diagnostic device this summer. The company is currently working on miniaturizing the hand-held instrument that is being developed to diagnose tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases, particularly multidrug resistant cases, in about ten minutes, according to Jonathan O’Halloran, CSO.

Another target for Q-POC is malaria, which is a major problem in the developing world and is caused by different microorganisms in Africa and Latin America.

“There is a dire need for inexpensive point-of-care testing that can be performed by health care technicians in remote areas of the globe,” O’ Halloran told GEN.

Arecor is now working with an increasing number of pharma companies helping them improve their formulation and stabilization strategies for their second-generation protein and peptide drug products, says Tom Saylor, president and CEO.

“In the past most pharmas worked on small molecules and many firms did not even consider stabilization activities until the clinical trial stage,” he explained. “Now they realize formulation and stabilization must be incorporated into the drug discovery process itself because they are dealing with, for lack of a better term, ‘unnatural proteins,’ such as fusion proteins and monoclonal antibody-drug conjugates.”

Arecor has developed algorithms aimed at helping to control the physical and chemical degradation pathways of proteins in development to increase their stability and improve their mode of delivery, notes Saylor.

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