NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Stratec Consumables and Vortex BioSciences have entered into a supply agreement for the manufacturing of a microfluidic chip as part of Vortex's VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System.
The two companies said today that the agreement is in regards to a customized microfluidic polymer chip, which is a key component of the VTX-1 instrument — Vortex's automated liquid biopsy platform for label free isolation of circulating tumor cells.
Initially developed in the lab of researcher Dino Di Carlo at UCLA, the commercial version of the system was launched last year for a variety of applications that require the isolation of CTCs from blood or other fluids. Stratec's contribution in fabricating microfluidic chips at its ISO-13485 certified facility in Salzburg, Austria has helped adapt the platform for commercial scale production, the firms said.
"The transfer from a variable research-level polymer prototype to a robust and reproducible plastic commercial chip is a key part of a successful transfer of technology to the market. This ultimately enables CTCs to be more widely used in cancer research and become part of the standard of care”, Vortex CSO and Cofounder Elodie Sollier said in a statement.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.