GENOMICA, a wholly owned company of PharmaMar Group, is developing a kit to reliably detect and identify the new virus known as “Wuhan pneumonia”.
- The new Wuhan coronavirus diagnostic kit will be available in 5-7 weeks.
- The GENOMICA kits have the capacity to simultaneously analyze 96 patient samples in less than 5 hours.
Madrid, January 30th, 2020.- GENOMICA, a wholly owned company of PharmaMar Group (MSE:PHM), is developing a kit to reliably detect and identify the new virus known as “Wuhan pneumonia” (coronavirus 2019-nCoV).
The kit being developed by GENOMICA will be commercially available in the next 5-7 weeks, and will have the capacity to simultaneously analyze 96 patient samples in less than 5 hours.
With extensive experience in the detection of respiratory pathogens, the Company is currently marketing a diagnostic kit for the detection of 20 different viruses associated with respiratory diseases, including the three most frequently detected coronaviruses in humans (HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-NL63). Coronaviruses are an extended family of viruses that can cause the common cold, but also serious diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
GENOMICA opened its subsidiary in Wuhan, China, in January 2018, becoming the first Spanish company to manufacture in vitro molecular diagnostic kits, with a subsidiary in China. At the end of 2019, the Company delivered to its Chinese partner, HuaSin Science, the first automatic, molecular diagnostic kits, based on GENOMICA’s CLART® technology, for the analysis of human papillomavirus, and which could be used for the diagnosis of this coronavirus, with the new kit being developed by GENOMICA.
On December 31st, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) learned of several cases of severe pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan (Hubei province) due to an unknown virus. On January 7th, 2020, the Chinese authorities identified it as belonging to the family of coronaviruses (2019-nCoV).
The number of confirmed cases of “Wuhan pneumonia” (2019-nCoV) infections since December 31st are increasing dramatically daily. Cases have been confirmed in several countries in Asia (China, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and United Arab Emirates, Europe (France and Germany), the Americas (USA and Canada) and Oceania (Australia).
Due to this global health emergency, reliable diagnostic tools are needed for a rapid response to provide appropriate treatment to patients and to prevent transmission to other citizens.
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About PharmaMar
Headquartered in Madrid, PharmaMar is a biopharmaceutical company, focused on oncology and committed to research and development which takes its inspiration from the sea to discover molecules with antitumor activity. It is a company that seeks innovative products to provide healthcare professionals with new tools to treat cancer. Its commitment to patients and to research has made it one of the world leaders in the discovery of antitumor drugs of marine origin.
PharmaMar has a pipeline of drug candidates and a robust R&D oncology program. It develops and commercializes Yondelis® in Europe and has other clinical-stage programs under development for several types of solid cancers: lurbinectedin (PM1183), PM184 and PM14. With subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and the United States. PharmaMar wholly owns other companies: GENOMICA, a molecular diagnostics company; Sylentis, dedicated to researching therapeutic applications of gene silencing (RNAi). To learn more about PharmaMar, please visit us at www.pharmamar.com.
About GENOMICA
GENOMICA is highly experienced in the analysis of genetic identification. Founded in 1990, with facilities in Madrid, GENOMICA is 100% owned by PharmaMar. It is our mission to improve the present molecular diagnostics tools and the human identification methods through reliability and automation.
Our main objective is to maintain leadership in genomics applications within the Spanish market, and to internationally extend our activities in the area of Molecular Diagnostics by means of the design, development, automation, and commercialization of new diagnostic applications of our innovative technological platform, Clinical Arrays Technology, CLART®.
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