NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Molecular diagnostics developer Curetis announced today it has acquired the real-time qPCR-based Gyronimo platform from joint owners Carpegen and Systec.
For a one-time upfront payment of €5 million ($5.3 million) in cash, Curetis will acquire all the platform's assets, including prototype systems, its intellectual property portfolio, and non-exclusive license to background IP and know-how. The firm will have exclusive worldwide rights to the platform, with an exception for Carpegen and Systec dental, environmental, and food safety testing.
The deal also includes two milestone payments to Carpegen and Systec totaling €2.5 million to be made upon CE marking and US Food and Drug Administration clearance of the platform and a first cartridge, as well as the potential for royalty-based earning of up to €9 million.
"Gyronimo's advanced product development stage, its speed, quantitation ability, low cost of goods, and mid-range multiplexing features are unique," Curetis' CEO Oliver Schacht said in a statement. "We believe that the platform will allow us to address additional infectious disease indications in hospitals ... significantly expand our market opportunity, and provide us with the opportunity to double our peak sales potential in the long run," Schacht added.
Gyronimo can run up to 10 parallel multiplex qPCR reactions from a single sample in as little as one hour. Curetis will integrate the Gyronimo platform with its Unyvero platform and test offerings. This will create a platform offering one-hour testing for 10 or more targets and highly multiplexed syndromic panels of 100 or more targets with run times of four to five hours.
The cost of goods for the Gyronimo cartridges is anticipated to be lower than other multiplex molecular diagnostic systems, opening up opportunities in the medium multiplexing infectious disease testing market, the firm noted.
Curetis' Unyvero System is currently marketed with application cartridges for pneumonia, implant and tissue infections, and bacteremia, and is in late stages of development for an intra-abdominal infections cartridge. The firm's development pipeline includes tests for sepsis host response, urinary tract infections, cardiology-related infections, and an extended panel for respiratory tract infections.