NetScientific's ProAxsis gets grant for Covid-19 project

(Sharecast News) - Technology commercialisation company NetScientific announced on Thursday that its portfolio company ProAxsis has been awarded a high impact Innovate UK grant, as part of the recent 'UKRI Ideas to Address Covid-19' competition.
The AIM-traded firm said ProAxsis would immediately initiate the £0.39m project, which would be co-funded by Innovate UK, to develop novel protease biomarkers to identify high-risk patients.

It said the development activity supported the goal for ProAxsis to fully establish itself as "£the leading commercial protease diagnostic provider of choice" globally.

The grant support would enable ProAxsis to expand its services available to the growing global client list of pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories, enhance the 'NEATstik' point-of-care test, and realise the opportunities in the Covid-19 response.

"This is the fifth independently-assessed grant awarded to the company in 2020, enabling partial funding support of projects with a total overall value of over £1m," said John Clarkson, chairman of both NetScientific and ProAxsis.

"Despite the challenging environment and lockdown interruption, ProAxsis has made strong progress this year and this latest announcement illustrates the increased commercial potential for its respiratory diagnostics offering in a post-Covid-19 world."

At 1103 GMT, shares in NetScientific were up 4.21% at 49.5p.