The fight to extinguish the coronavirus is far from over. For several states cases have yet to be purchased under management. California is among the hardest hit; a new one-day death record was set last week and the reopening of the State was rolled back.
Besides the obvious need to stop the spread of the virus, the need for as many studies as possible comes along.
In California more than 100,000 experiments are conducted per day. While cases have decreased modestly over the past week, the rate of positivity remains above 6%, which is higher than the 5 % level of the WHO for appropriate testing and suggests the need for additional testing.
Maxim analyst Jason McCarthy reports that the venture will prove beneficial to Biocept’s balance sheet, in addition to being able to provide the much needed test kits.
“Biocept is working to increase its testing supply, which comes at a crucial time as the US is facing a test bottleneck with tests taking up to 7 days to turnaround,” said the 5-star analyst, “COVID-19 looks like it could drive Biocept ‘s development, as we pointed out in previous notes.
Maxim Analyst – Jason McCarthy
The business has probably produced ~$700k since the end of June and has been testing a increasing number of specimens per week, which will bring them on track to offset slow oncology testing sales due to the pandemic and possibly even drive growth.
Biocept partners up with Aegea Biotechnologies to co-develop ultra-sensitive COVID-19 detection test
The highly sensitive assay developed by Aegea will be based on Biocept ‘s core Switch-Blocker technology in its oncology assays suite
Biocept Inc (BIOC) has signed an agreement with Aegea Biotechnologies Inc, a privately held life sciences firm, to co-develop a coronavirus (COVID-19) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.
The highly sensitive assay, developed by Aegea, will be based on Biocept ‘s core Switch-Blocker technology in its oncology assays series.
The test is designed to increase the sensitivity of virus detection and provide additional knowledge about different types of strain. As part of the contract, Biocept has the first choice to obtain a license agreement in its Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) accredited high-complexity molecular laboratory for any test that the agreement generates for commercialization.
“This project further extends Biocept ‘s efforts in the COVID-19 PCR research market and highlights our ability to evolve highly complex molecular-based assays based on our core Switch-Blocker technology for multiple applications, including potentially COVID-19.”
said Michael Nall, CEO of Biocept, in a statement.
This agreement provides Biocept with additional incremental revenue for R&D services and, if successfully established, an opportunity to extend our COVID-19 testing capabilities with a COVID-19 PCR next generation assay that we believe would have competitive advantages
The assay is designed to detect small numbers of copies of viral RNA, thereby theoretically detecting the viral load at far lower rates than traditional PCR-based assays, the firm said.
“Working with Biocept further enables this new PCR-based COVID-19 assay to grow rapidly,” Aegea Chief Business Officer Stella Sung said. “Biocept successfully employed Switch-Blocker technology to screen tens of thousands of clinical samples for unusual oncology-related genetic mutations. In addition, the CLIA laboratory of Biocept is actively involved in COVID-19 PCR testing which makes them the ideal partner for Aegea.
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