Business Showcase : Biosensia

By @SimonCocking

Describe the company – the elevator pitch…

Biosensia Ltd, an Irish biotech company, has developed RapiPlex; a multiplexing, low-cost, Point-of-Care (PoC) diagnostic platform. The system is a fluorescent immunoassay based optical detection platform capable of providing up to 24 results from a single biological sample in less than 20 minutes.

The technology has now reached the commercialisation stage and Biosensia intends to follow a co-development, licensing strategy which will minimise the time, costs and risk associated with bringing the product to market by leveraging partners’ exisiting framework of manufacturing, sales, marketing and distribution.

How are you different?

Biosensia’s low-cost platform is well-suited to a diverse range of market sectors, including the in-vitro-diagnostic PoC markets, which will benefit most from the technology. This is a high-growth market, which is now in urgent need of new, rapid, and cost-effective multiplexing, quantitative detection systems.

Proof-of-concept tests for cardiac and theranostic applications have already been performed on the RapiPlex platform, demonstrating the utility of the platform in two distinct clinical settings:

• Professional diagnosis of an acute event by a medical professional in an emergence department and intensive-care unit environment.
• Chronic disease management within a physician’s office or domestic setting by a lay user.

Biosensia has focused on these two areas to illustrate the usability and flexibility of the technology and demonstrate the diverse range of assays and application that can be measured using the platform.

Biosensia considers the largest market for the technology to be in-vitro diagnostics for human health, but given the fundamental multiplexing and low-cost potential of the technology a number of additional markets will benefit from the platform in the longer term including; veterinary, environmental, biowarfare and food safety (field-to-fork) diagnostics.

Biosensia has invested significantly in protecting the RapiPlex technology and now has an intellectual property (IP) portfolio which covers all aspects of the technology including the integrated platform, the fluorimeter and the cartridge microfluidics.

Why will the company do well?

RapiPlex’s multiplexing and high sensitivity capabilities are on trend with recent developments in clinical proteomic diagnostics. Biosensia is currently developing two PoC products for external partners based on unique multiple biomarker signatures in blood and internally the company has initiated its own development programme for chronic disease management based on a novel multiplexing biomarker panel.

Where are you based?

Biosensia is headquartered at NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at University College Dublin, complete with development and manufacturing laboratory facilities. In 2014 Biosensia received, and has since maintained, EN ISO13458:2012 certification for development and manufacture of medical devices, a key industry standard of quality.

When was the company launched?

Biosensia was launched in 2009.

What have been your biggest wins to date?

Within the last 6 months two development agreements have been signed, which will yield immediate revenues and grow the business significantly over the following 18–24 months. The company is actively pursuing collaboration agreements with industrial partners to develop products which will combine the RapiPlex technology with proprietary assay reagents. A diverse range of commercial opportunities are amenable to this technology and collaboration agreement discussions are on-going in the following areas; Sepsis, Chronic Disease Management and Cancer panels.

The recent contract wins are external validation by market leaders in capabilities of the RapiPlex platform.

What type of people (market segment) are you trying to attract to your product?

The ability to multiplex up to 24 individual biomarkers from a small volume is a significant competitive advantage of the RapiPlex platform. Multiplexing PoC has been typically limited to blood gas analysers but as the healthcare industry drives to decentralise patient sample testing, the demand for multi-analyte PoC platforms will increase. Biosensia is perfectly placed to address this need and has already validated the platform for a broad range of sample matrices and sample volumes, including whole blood, plasma, serum, saliva, urine and milk.

Tell us about your team?

Biosensia’s team has experience in both product development and in commercial exploitation of technology. The company’s Executive Chairman is Professor Jim Walsh, a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years’ experience in the diagnostics health-care industry. Niamh O’Luanaigh is COO and has 15+ years’ experience in rapid test development and manufacture for a broad range of applications.
The Biosensia team is a highly-skilled multi-disciplinary scientific and engineering team of 10 staff.

What are you long term plans for your company?

Biosensia intends to follow a co-development, licensing strategy which will minimise the time, costs and risk associated with bringing our product to market by leveraging our partners’ exisiting framework of manufacturing, sales, marketing and distribution.

How do people get in touch with you?

Further information on Biosensia is available via info@biosensia.com and the company can be contacted via t: +353 (0)1 716 3650 or e: www.biosensia.com

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If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.net or on Twitter: @SimonCocking