Therma Bright, Toronto, and its co-development partner, Orpheus Medica, Mississauga, Ontario, announced the successful completion of the initial feasibility studies with its polypeptide detection candidates for CoviSafe.
Therma and Orpheus also announced the engagement of nanoComposix, San Diego, to complete the development of CoviSafe. NanoComposix is uniquely positioned to begin final development of CoviSafe and to assist Therma and Orpheus with defining optimal reagents and chemistries necessary to make CoviSafe an ultrasensitive, rapid, saliva-based, point-of-care lateral flow test for SARS-CoV-2 and enable final development of CoviSafe.
NanoComposix is a global supplier of precisely engineered, highly characterized nanoparticles and provides full-service lateral flow assay development solutions for its customers. The company has more than a decade of experience incorporating novel nanoparticles and chemistry into diagnostic assays and will leverage its extensive experience in ultrasensitive, rapid, quantitative, point-of-care rapid tests to bring CoviSafe to market.
Therma and Orpheus will retain the commercial rights to the resulting CoviSafe rapid saliva test. The companies will work in parallel to complete development of the test prior to clinical testing for submission to Health Canada, FDA, and to attain European CE marking to introduce CoviSafe into markets as quickly as possible.
Steven Oldenburg, PhD, founder and CEO of nanoComposix, says, “nanoComposix is pleased to work alongside the dynamic teams at Therma Bright and Orpheus to accelerate both the product development cycle and commercial launch of the CoviSafe assay.”
Rob Fia, CEO of Therma Bright, adds, “We are pleased to complete the feasibility study and advance to next steps in the development of CoviSafe. It is exciting to work with such a proactive and experienced team at nanoComposix. NanoComposix will assist Therma and Orpheus to fast track the development of CoviSafe.”
“With the help of nanoComposix, we will be able to accelerate our work and bring this critical test to the market quicker,” says Saied Babaei, CEO of Orpheus. “We are impressed by nanoComposix’s expertise in working with Orpheus’ biological candidates to enhance sensitivity and specificity of the CoviSafe rapid test. We feel the addition of this strong technical team will further de-risk and accelerate the regulatory process and clinical validation of our saliva-based rapid test.”
For more information, visit ThermaBright.
Featured image: Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (green) infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (orange), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID.
Orpheus is no longer involved with the project. Instead Torion was created. “Torion Biosciences Inc. (“Torion”) with a mandate to develop, license and commercialize a rapid antigen test for screening of both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, infected or suspected of being infected with the COVID-19 virus. Therma Bright will control 50% of Torion with the remaining 50% controlled by others including a number of veteran biotech executives as the primary shareholders of Torion.”
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