Quotient Diagnostics Ltd announced the launch at MEDICA the Quo-Test Point-of-Care System which heralds a new era in diabetes testing. By combining the simultaneous measurement of the test's absorption and fluorescence quenching, Quo-Test delivers in one simple step, A1C results from blood in under 3 minutes. Compact, robust and easy-to-use, Quo-Test enables clinics and doctors' offices to perform laboratory quality testing with full confidence during a single patient visit.
Diabetes is one of the most challenging health problems in the 21st century, with close to 200 million people worldwide already diagnosed as having diabetes. In addition there is strong reason to believe that over half the diabetics in the world still remain undiagnosed.
According to Quotient's CEO David Chatterton the trend is for both diagnosis and follow-up to be performed in special clinics, hence the development of Quo-Test. "We have drawn on our broad experience in both assay and instrument development to create an instrument that we are confident will have a major impact on diabetes care."
Quo-Test exploits the so-called fluorescent quenching properties of a patented reagent to measure A1C in a way that matches the performance of existing laboratory-based methods. First, the fluorescence of a conjugate of boronic acid and a fluorophore is reduced (or "quenched") upon binding to cis-diol groups that are present on carbohydrates which are attached to haemoglobin molecules. By using solid state opto-electronic technology the Quo-Test desktop reader quantifies the concentration of A1C in the sample from this subtle quenching effect. Secondly the total amount of haemoglobin is quantified by absorption measurement. The combination of these two measures produces an A1C per cent result. Quo-Test is a fully automated homogenous assay system i.e. there are no separation steps and the system controls all the critical steps that may influence or affect the quality of the result. All of this combines to deliver results in about 3 minutes from a blood sample of under 5µL.
Quo-Test is being launched as a starter kit containing a reader, barcode scanner, mini-printer and a pack of 10 disposable cartridges.