ProAxsis Limited is a commercial-stage diagnostics company, based in Northern Ireland, and with a rapidly growing client list of pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories.
The company promotes a range of assay kits designed for the specific measurement of active protease biomarkers of disease. Our easy-to-use tests incorporate patented “ProteaseTags®”; smart molecules which trap an active protease within a complex biological sample and enable a visual readout of its presence.
The company has registered a CE Mark for activity-based immunoassays targeting Neutrophil Elastase (NE) and Proteinase 3, as biomarkers of lung infection and inflammation in chronic respiratory diseases such as COPD, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis.
This technology has been translated in to a point-of-care test (NEATstik®), to enable ongoing monitoring of active NE levels. Recently published data has shown that measuring active NE levels using NEATstik® enables identification of patients with airway bacterial infection and those patients at highest risk of suffering pulmonary exacerbations over the subsequent 12 months.
In addition to proteases, the company also has significant expertise in the measurement of other inflammatory biomarkers, including IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-alpha.
Aside from the provision of assays, ProAxsis is able to offer sample analysis at its purpose-built laboratory facility in Belfast, and is currently supporting a number of pharmaceutical company-sponsored Phase I, II and III clinical trials.
ProAxsis was founded in August 2013 by Professor Brian Walker and Dr Lorraine Martin, School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast. By September, ProAxsis had won the overall Northern Ireland Science Park’s 25K Award for entrepreneurialism and in February 2014, the first seed investment from partners NetScientific plc and QUBIS Ltd was secured. In September 2014, they were the first company in Northern Ireland to win a prestigious Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Award.
In 2018, the company was declared the “Innovative Business of the Year” at the Business Eye First Trust Awards for small businesses in Northern Ireland.
