LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Manchester-based diagnostics company genedrive announced on Monday that it has supplied Genedrive units and assays to the United States Department of Defense for field trials, as part its $7.8m development programme for a handheld device to allow for the detection of biohazards such as biological warfare agents.
The AIM-traded firm said "good progress" had been made in the second €2.9m phase of the programme first announced in March 2016, and the supply of units for field trials followed further development work and validation.

It described the 'Genedrive' product as a small, portable system which can rapidly analyse DNA without the need for sophisticated laboratory equipment.

In addition to the DoD programme, Genedrive is being used to test for tuberculosis in India and assays are under development for Hepatitis C and other infectious diseases.

Genedrive is also being developed for use in aquaculture to test for diseases in commercial fisheries, the company's board said.

The aim of the DoD programme has been to develop a smaller, lighter, more portable system that can detect multiple different agents with a single cartridge to allow more units to be deployed and more tests to be done.

Genedrive said that is against a backdrop of military personnel being expected to carry ever increasing amounts of equipment, and the logistical and cost implications of that demand.

"The goal of the programme is to use the key characteristics of Genedrive, its portability and flexibility, to develop a device and test combination that can potentially be widely deployed in the field both for homeland protection and across the world," said chief executive David Budd.

"Our cartridges detect multiple agents but are small enough to fit in a pocket."

Budd said the device weighs less than one kilogram and is relatively low cost, meaning multiple units could be bought and put into use.

"We are now working with the DoD on tests in the field to confirm the results we've seen so far on Genedrive's robustness and the accuracy of the tests."

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