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(Alliance News) - Avacta Group PLC said Friday it has partnered with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for the clinical validation of the rapid, saliva-based coronavirus antigen test which is being developed with life sciences firm Cytiva.
Shares in the Wetherby, England-based developer of Affimer biotherapeutics and reagents were up 5.2% at 141.00 pence on Friday in London.
Cytiva was formerly part of General Electric Co, when it was known as GE Healthcare Life Sciences.
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is dedicated to researching tropical medicine and disabling diseases, and has a research portfolio of GBP320 million.
Under the collaboration, LSTM will carry out a clinical validation of the SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test in its laboratories on patient samples, gathered from the UK, Africa and South America.
Clinical validation is the process of evaluating the performance of a diagnostic test using real patient samples. Such a process generates the sensitivity and specificity performance parameters which are most often used to define the performance of a diagnostics test.
"I am delighted to have established this collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. It is an important partnership which provides Avacta with access to patient samples both in the UK and abroad, where the incidence of the disease is currently much higher, to ensure prompt access to a sufficient number of samples for clinical validation," said Chief Executive Alastair Smith.
Due to the high prevalence of the diseases in the latter two regions, samples for prospective studies have become more readily available, and could speed up the validation process.
By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com
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