Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) today announced a collaboration with Narayana Nethralaya to develop a diagnostic solution for ophthalmology disorders on its ProteinSimple branded, multiplexing immunoassay instrument, Ella. The Ella platform, which is currently sold for research use only, allows users to perform high-quality immunoassays with no manual intervention, delivering results in just 90 minutes and requiring only 25 µL of sample. Factory calibration of each Simple Plex assay cartridge minimizes setup time and user error. Setting up an assay simply requires loading diluted samples into the cartridge. Once loaded, Ella performs every step of the immunoassay automatically, from wash steps to final quantification of results.
Under the terms of this collaboration, Bio-Techne will provide Ella instruments and Simple Plex assay cartridges, which are run on the Ella platform, for customized ophthalmology related evaluations. Narayana Nethralaya plans to conduct diagnostic clinical trials in India, with the aim of filing for regulatory approval using Ella as a diagnostic device for ophthalmic applications.
“This collaboration with Narayana Nethralaya potentially expands Ella’s capabilities as a tool for diagnosing ophthalmology disorders in India,” commented Chuck Kummeth, Bio-Techne’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We believe Ella has great potential as a clinical diagnostic system and look forward to pursuing these applications in the future.”
“The use of Ella during the diagnostic development process provides significant benefits over manual ELISA based approaches, enabling faster biomarker screening,” commented Dr. Arkasubhra Ghosh, Director of GROW Laboratory at Narayana Nethralaya.. “We are excited to utilize Ella to provide a better solution for differential diagnosis and monitoring of patients with ophthalmic disorders”, said Dr. Rohit Shetty, Narayana Nethralaya’s Vice-Chairman.
