The annual Congress sees leading clinical and medical experts gather from around the world to learn about, and share, the latest breakthroughs in clinical science and laboratory medicine.
Serum is the gold standard for biochemical analysis of blood samples and is produced when blood clots. Standard serum tubes clot slowly but can also clot poorly leading to laboratory issues and are unable to clot the blood of some patients – such as anticoagulated cardiac patients or people taking common medicine such as warfarin or other oral anticoagulants. Q-Sera’s break-through technology seeks to provide a cost-effective solution to these problems.
At this week’s conference, Dr Goce Dimeski, will present a scientific poster which provides data driven evidence outlining how Q-Sera’s new blood clotting technology, RAPClot, is a true breakthrough. Dr Dimeski is widely published internationally on issues relating to clinical blood collection requirements. His presentation will be underpinned by clinical understanding as he is the Chief Scientist in a major Australian hospital pathology department.
Dr Dimeski said, “We have important data on a new serum production technology, showing effective blood clotting and serum production in highly anticoagulated bloods using three of the most common anti-coagulants found in a hospital setting. Our data shows that there is no change in analyte results when RAPClot tubes are compared to industry standard rapid clotting tubes.”
By isolating proteins in the venom of some of the world’s deadliest snakes in Australia and others from overseas, Q-Sera has developed a novel class of coagulation agents patented for use in blood collection tubes. These ‘prothrombin activators’ were initially sourced from snake venom but can now be produced from modified cell lines using standard pharmaceutical manufacturing processes.
Blood collection tubes are coated with RAPClot, resulting in tubes which rapidly produce high quality serum, even if the blood sample contains anti-coagulants. These benefits may translate into cost efficiencies and reductions for healthcare systems and give improved outcomes for patients.
Michael Grant, CEO of Q-Sera, said, “In hospitals, particularly where urgent test results are required, the delay and poor quality of serum can hold-up lifesaving treatment or cause errors in patient diagnosis. Our solution has identified the benefits for serum production of an important class of proteins present in snake venom, some of which are able to be produced in the lab by ‘recombinant’ techniques. While the majority of these snake species may be native to Australia, the impact of this technology will be felt worldwide”.
The Q-Sera technology is based on the research of a team of scientists from The University of Queensland, Australia (UQ). It was licensed to Q-Sera by UniQuest, UQs main commercialisation company and has received investment from two of Australia’s premier innovation sector investors, the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF) and Uniseed who along with other institutional investors have funded Q-Sera’s activities.
Q-Sera is actively commercialising this ‘disruptive technology’ and is currently working with a number of multinational Medical Device companies to bring this technology and its benefits to the market. To communicate the technology, a clinical paper has been submitted to a major international journal with more to follow. Q-Sera is also pleased to announce that in addition to approval in EU, the primary patent has recently been granted in Japan with approvals in other jurisdictions expected shortly.
