NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Spanish molecular diagnostics firm Stat-Dx today said that it has secured a €20 million ($22.4 million) loan facility from the European Investment Bank for the development of diagnostic tools to identify infectious pathogens.
The loan will be drawn in two tranches over a three-year period with full repayment on the maturity date five years ahead. The funds will go toward the cofinancing of a three-year project "aimed at enabling faster and more accurate diagnostics that will replace current complex protocols to obtain analytical results," Stat-Dx said.
The firm is developing a cartridge-based single test system called DiagCORE, a fully integrated and automated molecular testing platform for infectious diseases. The platform is being developed to detect pathogens such as meningitis, and respiratory or gastrointestinal infections in about one hour.
Stat-Dx plans to apply for CE marking for DiagCORE and a respiratory panel by the end of the year, it said. Initially, it plans to launch DiagCORE with molecular cartridges, which leverages real-time PCR technology, followed with a launch of immunoassay cartridges later. The intention is market the system as a combined molecular-immunoassay system.