Legacy Infectious Disease Product Portfolio
Prior to shifting our focus to COVID-19 testing in February 2020, we had established our company as a leading provider of diagnostic tests for infectious diseases with a broad portfolio of infectious disease products. We refer to our infectious disease products, other than the DPP COVID-19 System, as our legacy products. We expect to generate an immaterial amount of revenue from our legacy products for the foreseeable future, while we continue to focus on the manufacture and commercialization of the DPP COVID-19 System. Thereafter, however, we intend to recommence the development, marketing, manufacture and sale of the legacy product portfolio consistent with market demand.
Our legacy infectious disease products are based on our DPP technology. They require only a single drop of blood from the fingertip and provide results in approximately 15 minutes. These products feature:
•
|
enhanced sensitivity and specificity;
|
•
|
advanced multiplexing; and
|
•
|
when used with our Micro Reader, numerical results processed in approximately 15 seconds.
|
Our legacy products include both stand-alone and multiplex tests for sexually transmitted infectious diseases such as HIV and Syphilis. We have sought to address the global concerns related to HIV and Syphilis co-infection through the development of a novel, multiplex test for both HIV and Syphilis. We developed a DPP HIV-Syphilis multiplex test and received regulatory approvals covering a number of international markets, including Brazil, Europe, Malaysia and Mexico.
Our legacy products also include tests for selected fever and tropical diseases such as Chagas, Ebola, Leishmaniasis and Zika. The market for lateral flow tests for mosquito-borne diseases includes established markets for diseases such as Dengue and Malaria. There are also a number of emerging markets for lateral flow tests for infectious diseases such as Burkholderia, Chikungunya, lassa, leptospirosis, Marburg, Rickettsia and Zika. Our legacy products in development include tests using our DPP platform to detect all of the aforementioned fever and tropical diseases, as stand-alone or multiplex tests.
Research & Development Services
Our commercially available products employ either our proprietary DPP technology or traditional lateral flow technology. In recent years, we have, while concurrently developing our own products, executed a strategy to leverage DPP intellectual property, as well as our scientific and operational expertise, through our Research & Development Services program of collaborative projects.
Research & Development Services develops tests for third parties using our DPP platform and, in limited cases, other platforms in projects that we believe have the potential to create value for the rest of our business. Research and development, or R&D, costs related to these collaborations are fully funded by our collaborators. We believe that, in addition to providing revenue to support our R&D organization, these activities further validate the DPP platform’s ability to provide superior diagnostic performance compared with products that utilize traditional lateral flow technology. The projects also expand the know-how of our R&D team, which we seek to leverage in the development of our own products.
Examples of projects performed by Research & Development Services include a biomarker development project agreement entered into with AstraZeneca plc in October 2017 in which we use both our DPP and optical analyzer technologies, and a potential companion/compatible diagnostic test being developed in collaboration with Shire Human Genetic Therapies, Inc. a subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited.
We believe leading global healthcare organizations and others have chosen to collaborate with us based on our deep scientific expertise with our DPP technology platform and capabilities, our successful record of developing DPP tests with a diverse set of collaborators, including global commercial companies, governments and non-governmental organizations, and our extensive experience in obtaining regulatory approvals from various regulatory authorities in the United States, Brazil , the European Union and Mexico.