ProAxsis Ltd today announces that the company has completed the development process for NEATstik®, a novel point-of-care test for measuring active neutrophil elastase, and has successfully registered the product with a CE Mark. This allows the company to sell the product throughout Europe.
NEATstik® is a first-in-class diagnostic tool for the monitoring of lung inflammation and infection in patients with respiratory diseases such as COPD and bronchiectasis. COPD is known to affect in excess of 24 million patients in Europe alone. NEATstik® utilises the company’s proprietary ProteaseTag® technology, which permits specific and sensitive capture of only the active form of neutrophil elastase, and complements the laboratory-based Active NE Immunoassay, which was registered with a CE Mark in 2016.
Dr David Ribeiro, CEO of ProAxsis, said, “The point-of-care market was valued at $23.5 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach approximately $40.5 billion by 2022. We are very grateful, both to our excellent development partners, and to the investors and other innovation funders who have supported this extensive development programme. The CE Mark registration of NEATstik® represents the most significant milestone achievement to date for ProAxsis.”
To find out how ProAxsis can support the measurement of active protease biomarkers of disease, or for any further queries, please contact info@proaxsis.com
ABOUT PROAXSIS
ProAxsis Limited is a commercial-stage diagnostics company, based in Northern Ireland, and with a rapidly growing global client list of pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories. 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 is one of the core portfolio companies of Netscientific plc. The company is also supported by QUBIS, the commercialisation arm of the Queens University Belfast.
