Products will be registered for IVD use in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Latin America.

Life Technologies will market select respiratory virus and bacterial pathogen identification panels made by PathoFinder. The panels will be sold under the Applied Biosystems TrueScience RespiFinder product line for in vitro diagnostic use.

“In the last few years PathoFinder has developed a set of unique multiplex tests for the simultaneous detection of viruses and bacteria that cause respiratory tract infections,” says Guus Simons, CEO of PathoFinder. Todd Laird, head of the fragment and sequence genomics business for Life Technologies, adds, “Our capillary electrophoresis systems for sequencing and fragment analysis, like the 3500Dx Series Genetic Analyzers, together with PathoFinder’s assays can help physicians make better patient-care decisions.”

Life Technologies intends to register the product for in vitro diagnostic use in most European countries as well as in Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. In Belgium, France, Italy, and The Netherlands, PathoFinder or its distributors will continue selling RespiFinder products under the PathoFinder label. The assays will not be available in the U.S. or Canada.

The Truescience RespiFinder 15 and RespiFinder 19 Pathogen Identification Panels can detect up to 19 of the most common respiratory viruses and bacteria, including influenza virus, respiratory syncitial virus, parainfluenza virus, and Bordetella pertussis. These multiplex PCR tests can detect and differentiate RNA viruses and DNA viruses in a single assay. Clinicians can reportedly determine if antibiotic or antiviral drugs might be effective in treating an ill patient in seven hours.

Detection of the various amplicons by the RespiFinder panels is accomplished by size-fractionation on a capillary electrophoresis system like the DNA sequencers ABI310, ABI3100, ABI3130, ABI3730, ABI3500 (all from Applied Biosystems), and Beckman CEQ systems. They rely on PathoFinder’s MultiFinder technology, which enables the analysis of up to 25 targets in a single reaction.

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