NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Cepheid today said that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded a grant of $7.5 million to the firm and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to further develop the GeneXpert System.
Specifically, the grant is being used to support the development of a new 10-color detection technology for Cepheid's GeneXpert System, which currently is capable of six-color detection. Cepheid said that when coupled with its virtual array technology, the 10-color system will potentially be able to simultaneously detect up to 100 different targets per sample.
The 10-color technology is expected to deliver more cost-effective infectious disease panel testing and enable the development of new, comprehensive antimicrobial resistance and oncology tests, said Cepheid. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based firm expects to establish clinical utility of the new system through development of a new assay for multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, with additional GeneXpert test to follow.
"This dramatic increase in the number of targets we can detect with a single test will enable us to develop an assay for MDR and XDR Mycobacterium tuberculosis that will give clinicians a full panel of information, including resistance to the widest variety of treatments," UMDNJ's David Alland said in a statement.