Zalgen and NOWDiagnostics Announce Strategic Collaboration to Advance Novel Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Tropical Diseases

Collaboration combines Zalgen’s leadership in hemorrhagic fevers and other tropical diseases with NOWDiagnostics’ unique ADEXUSDx® rapid test platform and GMP manufacturing capabilities

Zalgen Labs LLC (Zalgen), a biotechnology and diagnostics company focused on high-impact, neglected infectious diseases, announced that it has entered into a series of agreements with NOWDiagnostics Inc. (NOWDx), an innovator in rapid diagnostic tests (RDT), to collaborate in the development, manufacturing and commercialization of infectious disease diagnostic products.

Under the terms of the agreements, the parties will collaborate in bringing new rapid infectious disease tests to the global market, primarily using the patented NOWDx ADEXUSDx® test system. NOWDx will also manufacture existing Zalgen products, including the ReEBOV® Antigen Rapid Test for Ebola virus and the ReLASV™ Antigen Rapid Test for Lassa fever. The ReEBOV® Antigen Rapid Test for Ebola was the first RDT and the first immunoassay authorized for emergency use by the FDA for the presumptive detection of Ebola virus, and also the first listed for procurement by the World Health Organization (WHO) under the Emergency Use Assessment and Listing procedure.

Zalgen is a partner of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC), an academic and industry partnership lead by Tulane University, developing state-of-the-art diagnostic and immunotherapeutic products for biothreat agents and emerging pathogens. The NOWDx alliance expands the VHFC portfolio with an advanced diagnostic RDT platform for additional products currently in development.

“The new alliance with NOWDiagnostics significantly enhances our diagnostic product capability worldwide,” said Zalgen Managing Director, Luis Branco, Ph.D. “Zalgen and the VHFC plan to continue building on our portfolio of diagnostic products for hemorrhagic fevers and other tropical diseases, and the ADEXUSDx cassette is the ideal immunodiagnostic platform to address the market demands.”

“High risk diseases have a devastating impact on communities across the globe.  We are excited to leverage VHFC’s world-class science with our platform to try and address the need for fast and accurate diagnoses, even in the remotest of places” said Kevin Clark, CEO of NOWDiagnostics. “We look forward to developing future assays in our format and value the collaboration with the VHFC and Zalgen.”

 

About Zalgen Labs

Zalgen Labs is a biotechnology and diagnostics company, with headquarters in Germantown, Md., and an advanced diagnostic product development center in Aurora, Colo., specializing in the design and production of superior biological molecules critical for the development and commercialization of immunotherapeutics, novel vaccines, and reliable, rapid, and affordable diagnostic platforms targeting neglected and underrepresented human infectious diseases. The company makes use of its proprietary expression platforms, including its patented mammalian cell-based biomanufacturing system, CHOLCelect, to deliver next generation biologicals to world health and biodefense settings. For more information, visit www.zalgenlabs.com.

 

About NOWDiagnostics, Inc.

NOWDiagnostics Inc., based in Springdale, Ark., is a leader in innovative diagnostics testing. Its ADEXUSDx® product line features a lab at your fingertip, using only a single drop of blood to test for a variety of common conditions, illnesses, and diseases with results in a matter of minutes. By eliminating the need to send tests to off-site laboratories, NOWDiagnostics has the potential to decrease by days the waiting period to determine test results. The company’s Springdale, Ark., facility was officially registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2014. The company is currently offering an hCG (pregnancy) test in the United States and Europe, and three cardiac (heart attack) tests and three toxicology tests in Europe. Additional tests are in the development pipeline, including sexually transmitted diseases, more cardiac (heart attack), food intolerances, common infectious diseases, and a variety of screening tests. For more information about NOWDiagnostics, visit www.nowdx.com.

 

About the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium

The Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium was established in 2010 as a result of several multi-year grants and contracts awarded to Tulane University by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support Tulane’s ongoing efforts to treat and prevent Lassa fever. The goal of the Consortium is to understand mechanisms related to the human immune response to infections from Lassa, Ebola, Zika and other viruses. Specifically, by understanding what parts of the virus are recognized by the immune system, scientists can better understand mechanisms of antibody-mediated protection or pathogenesis in infected humans. Consortium efforts have focused on the development of new recombinant proteins leading to first-in-class diagnostic products, which have shown to be extremely effective in clinical settings in Africa. This progress is allowing a transition of efforts towards instituting better treatment of affected individuals and ultimately prevention of Lassa fever and other tropical diseases altogether. The Consortium is a collaboration between Tulane, Scripps Research Institute, Harvard University/Broad Institute, University of Texas Medical Branch, Autoimmune Technologies LLC, Kenema Government Hospital (Sierra Leone), Redeemers University and the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (Nigeria), Zalgen Labs, LLC, and various other partners in the U.S. and West Africa. For more information, visit www.vhfc.org

 

Zalgen Company Contact
Matt Boisen, Ph.D. – Director of Diagnostic Development
Phone (301) 720-0330  Email: mboisen@zalgenlabs.com

NowDiagnostics Company Contact
Liz Slape, VP Marketing
Phone: (479) 966-4530  Email: liz.slape@nowdx.com

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